Richmond Garden And Farm Supply Centre

Railway passenger station, later garden centre, dating from around 1846. Designed by G T Andrews for George Hudson's Great North of England Railway. Constructed in sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, Welsh slate and glass roof, in the Jacobethan style. The building follows a triple-depth plan with a single storey comprising a nine-bay train shed fronted by an eleven-bay office range, with a five-bay porte-cochère further forward. The structure sits on a plinth with quoins at the angles.

The porte-cochère features an arcade of moulded four-centred arches separated by stepped buttresses, with a string course decorated with gargoyles and a parapet above. The inner wall contains, from left to right: a three-light mullion and transom window; a leaved door in a surround with moulded stop-chamfered jambs and moulded corbels supporting the lintel; a part-glazed leaved door with similar jambs and a three-light mullioned overlight; a two-light mullion and transom window; and the main entrance door featuring Perpendicular-style traceried panelling with a wicket-door, set within a hollow-moulded pointed-arched doorway with a label. To the right of the porte-cochère stand three two-light mullion and transom windows, a gabled slightly-projecting bay with a canted-bay window topped by a lead roof, and two further two-light mullion and transom windows. A string course and parapet run across, with Welsh slate roofs rising higher over the porte-cochère. Ashlar copings finish the left section and the right end. Tall ashlar chimneys with strings and cornices punctuate the elevation: a square stack at the far left; a double-octagon stack between bays two and three; a lozenge stack at the right end of the porte-cochère; a single octagon stack to the left of the gabled bay; and a double-octagon stack to its right. Behind rises the glazed two-span roof of the train shed.

A single-storey lower range to the left of the porte-cochère supports a wrought-iron water tank bearing a roundel inscribed "E THOMPSON YORK 1854".

The rear elevation of the train shed comprises nine bays divided by stepped buttresses, containing eight cross windows with the fifth bay blank. The glass roof spanning bays two to eight is slightly raised with a louvred ventilator positioned below at the junction with the Welsh slate roof.

The left return features twin openings to the train shed, now fitted with 20th-century glazing below herringbone timber panelling in the gables, each opening containing a two-light window and decorated tie-beams with traceried bargeboards.

The right return displays, to the left, a set-back lower gable of the office range with a two-light mullion and transom window, and twin gables of the train shed with a canted-bay window topped by a stone roof in the centre and a double mullion and transom window to the right.

Interior features include panelled doors, cornices and some fireplaces remaining in rooms of the office range. A ticket fixture survives in the former ticket office, and shutters to windows from the parcels office onto the platform are intact. The train shed roof valley is carried on octagonal hollow cast-iron columns, one bearing the maker's name "JOHN WALKER YORK" (iron founder to Queen Victoria from 1847 to 1853, and maker of the railings and gates for the British Museum in 1851). The connecting beams take the form of four-centred arches with flat castings of Perpendicular-Tudor motifs in the spandrels. The train-shed spans are covered by a suspension roof.

The station complex at Richmond forms an important group of railway buildings and remains almost complete, with only the goods station and coal-staithes having been demolished. The passenger station is of outstanding architectural importance as one of the finest stations designed by G T Andrews for George Hudson, executed with particularly high quality materials and craftsmanship. Many comparable stations designed by Andrews have since been demolished. The station formed the terminus of the Richmond branch line from Darlington.