Station House

Station House is a station master's house built between 1883 and 1901 to the Great Western Railway's Standard Class C house design. It is constructed of red brick with a moulded brick plinth, featuring a shallow hipped roof with projecting eaves and paired lateral stacks of red brick.

The building is roughly square on plan, two storeys high and three bays wide, with double depth containing two rooms each to front and rear. An attached single storey wash house stands to the rear.

The main elevation faces the railway and features a central entrance door with a timber porch on chamfered vertical timbers, glazed sides and hipped roof. The entrance door has glazing to the upper panels and fielded panels below, with a triple light window above. Windows to both ground and first floors have segmental headed openings with brick voussoirs and stone cills. Ground floor windows are six-over-six sashes while first floor windows are eight-over-eight. The rear wash house has an apex roof projecting forward to provide a covered entrance to the rear, with hardstanding of engineering bricks laid as paviors. The rear entrance has a plank and batten door in a segmental arched opening with brick voussoir.

Internally, the ground floor comprises a central staircase hall with principal rooms either side. The room to the right retains its original black marble fire surround with cast iron fireplace. Both rooms have original moulded cornice, doorcasings and skirting boards, with four panelled doors featuring mouldings. The staircase has plain stick balusters set obliquely with a moulded handrail, and the staircase hall is panelled below the stair. The rear kitchen retains its high fire surround and skirting boards. The scullery has a plank and batten door with ventilation holes to the understairs cupboard and another plank and batten door to the walk-in pantry, which contains a row of wrought iron bacon hooks in situ.

The first floor principal bedrooms have original skirting boards, doorcasings and ornate wooden fire surrounds with oval-mirrored overmantels and cast iron grates. Rear bedrooms have smaller moulded timber fire surrounds and iron grates with original skirtings and doorcasings. The bathroom retains its cast iron claw footed bath with original basin and lavatory. First floor doors are four panelled without mouldings. Several timber sash windows retain their original fittings for blinds. The rear wash house contains a two light, six pane timber casement window to the front with a plank and batten door, and features a built-in copper with its original plank and batten lid.

The plot is bounded on the east by the cutting carrying the adjacent road under the railway. On this side the plot retains its original brick retaining wall and iron railings.

Station House forms part of a railway group that includes Stroud's Great Western Railway station, built around 1845 to Isambard Kingdom Brunel's design for the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (listed Grade II), the Goods Shed also by Brunel dating from around 1845 (listed Grade II*), and the Imperial Hotel (unlisted). The plot was purchased by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway in 1843, two years before the station opened, but no building appears on the site until sometime between 1883 and 1901 according to map evidence. The house is built to the Great Western Railway's standard Class C house design and remained in the ownership of successive railway companies until 1985.