London Road NER Goods Station

London Road NER Goods Station

A railway goods sheds and office building completed in 1881 to the designs of NER architect William Bell.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with sandstone dressings, and is roofed with Welsh slate and asbestos sheeting.

The complex comprises a two-storey goods office aligned north to south with a single-storey double-pile goods shed attached to its rear. The goods office has paired, square-headed road entrances at its north end flanking a two-bay office to the right. The goods shed projects for one bay to either side of the goods office, each projecting bay containing a former rail entrance. The configuration of road and rail entrances, combined with the building's depiction on the 1901 Ordnance Survey map, suggests that tracks occupied the northernmost and southernmost bays of the shed with a central storage area and loading platform.

The goods office or station house stands beneath a pitched slate roof and features a brick plinth, stone band and prominent copings, moulded watertables, and a central ridge chimney stack. The main four-bay elevation comprises segmental arched panels rising through both floors. Their heads are formed by a continuous double-banded moulding with ornate stops, infilled with finely-gauged brickwork. To the ground floor left are paired, square-headed openings forming road entrances with chevron-decorated cast iron lintels, supported on carved stone corbels. To the right is a two-light square-headed mullioned window and a similar single-light window separated from an original entrance by a stone mullion. All openings are now boarded; the original fanlight to the entrance is blocked with brick. The first floor features segmental arched panels framing arched, two-light windows with ornate stone mullions and stone sills; fenestration is missing from all but one. A bracketed cornice with sandstone dentils runs above. The south gable displays a two-light segmental-arched mullioned window to the first floor with a keyed oculus above, set with a datestone of 1881. The north gable has a similar first floor window.

The attached goods shed is single-storey with double-pile construction and corrugated asbestos sheeting roofs. The northern section is slightly narrower at its east end than the southern section, reflected in a slightly curving north wall and steeper roof pitch. Each projecting bay has a large square-headed rail opening with steel jambs to the lower parts, now blocked with brick. The south elevation comprises fifteen bays defined by rectangular recessed panels with brick modillions, a chamfered plinth, a stone sill band, and a bracketed eaves cornice. The central bay contains a full-height segmental-arched and keyed opening, flanked by seven segmental-arched window openings with stone sills, recently re-fenestrated. The north elevation has three identical panels to its slightly curving eastern end, but the remainder is blind. It features a bracketed eaves cornice and a stone plinth of approximately fifteen courses, suggesting incorporation of an earlier feature. Timber bearer marks run its full length, evidence of an earlier roof projection, possibly an external platform or rail line associated with an earlier lime depot building. The east elevation comprises paired gables, the northern narrower than the south, each with an oculus of finely gauged brick voussoirs. The ground floor of the north section has paired segmental-arched road and rail openings with stone imposts and keystones and cast iron jambs acting as buffers. The ground floor of the south section has an identical rail opening at its left with a window opening to the right. Traces of a former 20th-century lean-to can be identified on this elevation.

The interior of the goods office is largely open to the roof following loss of floors and ceilings, though partition walls remain defining a stair hall with a stone dog leg stair and an office to the ground floor and a pair of offices to the first floor. These rooms retain few features except timber architraves, a brick chimney breast to the more northerly first floor office, and what appear to be gas pipes and mantles to the first floor. The recessed panels of the goods shed exterior are expressed internally on both north and south walls. The three road and rail openings in the east gable are fitted with a modern roller shutter, whilst the paired road entrances at the west end have double timber boarded doors. A line of nine cast-iron columns runs down the centre of the building carrying a lattice girder that supports the original double-pitched cast-iron roof structure; this comprises triangular braced trusses with continuous skylights to each pitch.