Citadel Station

Citadel Station is a railway station built in two phases, 1847-8 and 1879-80, for a Joint Station Committee. The original design is by Sir William Tite. It is constructed of calciferous sandstone ashlar on a chamfered plinth, featuring stepped buttresses, an eaves cornice, and solid parapets. The roofs are covered with graduated greenslate, with coped gables and some skylights and gabled roof dormers, along with ashlar ridge and end chimney stacks. A glazed roof covers the running lines behind the main facade. The station is built in the Tudor style.

The main facade is two storeys and consists of numerous bays at varying roof levels. A central port-cochere has five pointed arches, each divided by a buttress that rises as a finial. Coats-of-arms are positioned above each arch: the central Royal arms are flanked by those of the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway and Caledonian Railway; panels intended for the Maryport & Carlisle Railway and Newcastle & Carlisle Railway were left blank. Mullioned and transomed windows, mostly of three lights, are located above the port-cochere and in the adjacent offices. A clock tower, octagonal on a square base, sits above the entrance. A single-storey former waiting and refreshment room section to the left features a series of facing gabled projections with mullioned and canted bay windows. A central footbridge of crossed girders spans the island platforms beneath a glazed roof supported by hooped trusses. The island buildings are also two storeys, with numerous bays in a continuous row, and doorways and windows in a restrained Tudor style.

The interior includes numerous stone fireplaces in a Tudor style; some, particularly in the former refreshment rooms, are inscribed and dated. A detached wall relating to the demolition of part of the roof in 1957-8 is listed separately. The station is considered among the most significant early major railway stations in Britain.