Kettering Railway Station, including the main building and platforms 1,2,3 and 4 and their associated buildings and canopies

Kettering Railway Station is a Victorian railway complex built in phases between 1879 and 1897–98, with later additions. The station comprises a main building on the east side of the line, along with four platforms and their associated structures.

Main Station Building (1895–98)

The principal station building dates from 1895–98 and is constructed of red brick with terracotta and sandstone dressings. It has slate roofs over two pitched sections. The building has a long, shallow plan that sits flat against Platform 1 to the west but has a stepped and irregular profile facing the forecourt to the east. It consists of two pitched-roofed buildings—an entrance block and an accommodation block—linked and adjoined by lower flat-roofed sections. The entrance block, likely designed by Charles Trubshaw, is located to the south and contains the booking hall, booking office and café. The accommodation block houses the café kitchen, offices and waiting rooms on the ground floor, with a now-vacant apartment on the first floor.

Forecourt Elevation

The forecourt elevation, described from south to north, begins with the men's toilet block, which has altered window openings. This steps forward to the former carriage entrance, which features a semi-circular archway and a pitched metal-and-glass roof. The entrance block follows, comprising five bays with three continuous terracotta bands running below the window cills, at the transoms, and across the lintels. The first bay breaks forward twice—first to a hatchway and then to a doorway, both serving the former parcels office. The second bay projects and has a large central window flanked by smaller windows on each side. Above is a pitched gable decorated with the 'MR' (Midland Railway) insignia and topped with a ball finial. The three northern bays are sheltered by a hipped ridge-and-furrow steel-and-glass canopy supported on brackets. A shaped-gable chimneystack decorated with a sunflower motif rises above a semi-elliptical entrance archway (now fitted with 21st-century metal-framed automatic doors). This archway has a terracotta arch ring, dropped keystone and quoins, beneath a low, ramped parapet.

A short single-storey link connects the entrance block to the accommodation block, which has three bays at first-floor level, each with a central pitched dormer and casement window breaking through the dentilled eaves. At ground-floor level there are six bays, though the first, fourth and fifth are obscured by single-storey projections built for circulation and as a partitioned toilet block for the ladies' waiting rooms behind. The main station range ends with a long, single-storey wing that steps back to a canted corner at the north end—originally built parallel with the wall of the engine shed.

The entrance block is one storey plus an attic and is distinguished by its terracotta dressings and five decorated gables: one at each end (north and south), each with a ball finial, and three facing the station forecourt. The accommodation block is one-and-a-half storeys and much plainer, with two chimneystacks.

Platform 1 Elevation

The elevation facing Platform 1 has irregular fenestration with continuous sandstone strings across the lintels and cills. It features a small affixed metal milepost (a matching one appears on Platform 3) and a large Y-shaped metal gradient-post. The southern three-quarters of the elevation are sheltered by sixteen bays of hipped ridge-and-furrow steel-and-glass canopies supported on steel columns. The bay opposite the station entrance (aligned with the archway on the forecourt elevation) has 21st-century metal-framed automatic doors. Adjacent on the south side are 20th-century tubular steel railings that originally surrounded the entrance to the subway.

Interior of Main Building

The southern end of the main station building, including the entrance block, houses (from south to north): the men's toilets, a refuse area, a storeroom, staff offices, toilets and kitchen, the booking office, the booking hall and entrance lobby with adjacent waiting room, and a café with offices and kitchens. These rooms have been altered with suspended ceilings, replacement floors, partition walls and modern services, but retain some original fixtures including four-panelled doors, door and window surrounds, cornices and wide skirting boards. The booking hall and entrance lobby are divided by a segmental archway with engaged octagonal piers. They, along with the adjacent waiting room, have plasterwork platbands.

Beneath the café and kitchens is a vaulted brick cellar, most recently used as a public house and now vacant.

The café kitchens extend beyond the entrance block into the accommodation block. Beyond them is the former ladies' waiting room, now disused, which retains its cornice, dado rail, wainscot, skirting board and four-panelled doors. It has a toilet block projecting into the forecourt; the two cubicles have moulded joinery. The first floor of the accommodation block contains an apartment originally comprising two bedrooms, a bathroom, water closet and store. The plan-form of the bedrooms survives intact. The bathroom has been converted into a kitchen and the landing and stairs have been rebuilt. Both bedrooms and the kitchen have fireplaces with tiled reveals; in one bedroom and the kitchen these retain the same decorative cast-iron grates and chimneypieces.

North of the accommodation block are (from south to north): a modern telecommunications room; the former telegraph office with fireplace and dismantled switchboard equipment; the former gentlemen's waiting room and toilets, with tiling and moulded joinery, now part-partitioned for a boiler room; the present stationmaster's office and adjacent meeting room, refurbished in the late 20th century with no surviving fixtures or fittings; and a disused storeroom.

The main station building is constructed of red brick with painted timber door and window frames, sandstone window cills and metal rainwater goods. The lintels on the platform elevation are sandstone, while those on the forecourt are mostly shallow, segmental brick arches.

Platforms and Canopies

Platforms 2 and 3 (Island Platform)

Platforms 2 and 3 form an island between the east (slow) and west (fast) tracks. Both sides are covered by ridge-and-furrow canopies of 1879 constructed of cast-iron, covered in places with glass but predominantly with replacement fibreglass sheeting. The canopy is thirteen bays long and three columns deep. The cast-iron columns have simple plinths and capitals beneath four-way brackets supporting decorative spandrels with delicate pierced foliate work cast to the same pattern as used by the engineer Charles Driver at the 1857 station. The west elevation (Platform 3) has matching gable screens. These have been lost on the east elevation (Platform 2), where they have been cut back, though the bosses to the gutter ends have been reinstated. The canopy finials to both platforms are replacements and much simpler than those in Driver's drawings.

The canopy spans two flat-roofed, single-storey weather-boarded buildings. The southern building, dating from 1879, has lattice trusses beneath the canopy that eliminate the central column and all but the end spandrels. It has a low extension at its south end now used for plant. The northern building, dating from around 1897, is smaller and has a low extension at its north end. It bears a metal plaque commemorating its use as a YMCA forces canteen during the Second World War. This building was constructed around the columns when built.

Both weather-boarded buildings are painted and feature four-panelled doors and paired one-over-one sash windows, both with eared architraves. They have paired brackets and decorative cornices, and skirting boards. The timber interiors incorporate skirting boards, panelling, dado rails, wainscots, door and window surrounds and cornices. Some rooms retain their fireplaces with simple surrounds. Only the waiting room and first-class waiting room at either end of the southern island building are in use today; these have fewer or no visible fixtures and fittings as they have been lined with plasterboard and given suspended ceilings. The northern island building is pierced by the central columns of the canopy above.

Between the two weather-boarded buildings is a low enclosure of decorative cast-iron railings with a gate at its south end, originally surrounding a stairwell to the subway that is now filled in. To the north of the weather-boarded buildings is a 21st-century single-storey metal-and-glass platform shelter.

Platform 4

Platform 4, on the west side of the tracks, has thirteen bays of the same 1879 ridge-and-furrow canopies, two columns deep, constructed of cast-iron with the same materials as the island platforms. The spandrel ends above the platform edge have been cut back in the same manner as those on Platform 2. From the southern end the platform features: three bays over a screen wall of 1999–2000 with a door to the subway of 1879; five bays over a weather-boarded building of 1879 matching those on the island platforms; then five further bays over a 1999–2000 screen wall. A low engineering brick wall runs the remaining length of the platform. The canopy finials are replacements and simpler than those in Driver's original drawings.

The timber interior of the weather-boarded building incorporates the same features as those on the island platforms. Only the central waiting room is in use today and has fewer visible fixtures and fittings as it has been lined with plasterboard and given a suspended ceiling.

Subway and Footbridge

The disused subway of 1879 survives beneath the tracks opposite the station entrance. It is brick-lined with a vaulted roof and is now used only for services.

A steel-and-glass covered footbridge dating from 1999–2000 crosses the south end of the station. It has a stepway, lift and canopy leading to each platform. These structures, along with platform signage, lighting, seating, lamp-posts, bicycle storage racks and other subsidiary features, which are all modern or date from the late 20th century onwards, are not of special architectural or historic interest.