Eskbank Station, Edinburgh And Dalkeith Railway

Eskbank Station, Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway

Former Eskbank and Dalkeith Station, comprising a station building with platforms, foot bridge and road bridge, all situated in a cutting to the west.

The station building was designed by Thomas Grainger and John Miller in 1847. It is a 2-storey, 3-bay symmetrical double-pile Tudor structure with recessed single-storey gabled wings, now converted into flats. The masonry is stugged cream sandstone with a cill course at ground level on the east, north and south elevations, and a string course above the first floor on the east and west elevations. The east and west elevations have coped parapets. The stonework features finely droved margin drafts and rybats with chamfered reveals including cills.

On the east elevation facing Station Road, the gabled centre bay is slightly advanced and contains a crenellated porch at ground level with a 4-centred arched doorway, modern door and multi-pane fanlight. Glazed arrowslits are set on returns in recessed panels, with a corbelled parapet above. A hoodmoulded bipartite window sits at first floor with a blind arrowslit in the gablehead. Bipartite windows occupy both floors in the outer bays, with hoodmoulding at ground level. There is an additional window between the left and centre bays at ground level.

The north elevation is M-gabled. The left gable contains two hoodmoulded bipartite windows at ground and a hoodmoulded window at first floor centre. The right gable has a gabled wing adjoining at ground with a small opening to the left at first floor. The wing features a hoodmoulded window on its east return and a blocked door flanked by two windows on the north elevation.

The south elevation is similarly M-gabled. A hoodmoulded door with a 4-pane fanlight sits to the left of the right gable. Hoodmoulded bipartite windows occupy the ground and first floors between the gables. The wing on this side has a hoodmoulded window on its east return, a 2-leaf modern door (No 6A) with slated canopy to the left and a tripartite window at centre.

The west elevation has wings advanced at each side and contains 5 two-storey bays. Doors appear in bays to the left and right of the centre, with windows in the centre and outer bays; the window at centre was formerly a door. Bipartite windows occupy the first floor in the centre and outer bays. The north wing has a hoodmoulded bipartite window at centre and a door to the right at ground, with a blocked narrow window in the gablehead and a blank south return with the wallhead angled up to the west elevation. The south wing contains a hoodmoulded bipartite window at centre, a modern door with plate glass fanlight to the left and a square glazed opening (a former ticket window) at centre on the north return, again with the wallhead angled up to the west elevation.

Throughout, the windows are sash and case with largely horizontal-pane divisions in narrow lights, some with 12 panes. Moulded gablet-coped skews and corbelled coped gablehead stacks to the north and south are raised with black brick. The roof is covered in grey slates with some original cans and a rooflight to the right on the east pitch.

The foot bridge runs on an east-west axis across the former railway line and consists of a cast-iron lattice structure with a timber walkway.

The road bridge also runs on an east-west axis to the north of the foot bridge and carries Lasswade Road over the former railway line. It is a single span structure with a segmental arch, built in droved ashlar with a brick arch ring and intrados. A band course and saddleback coped parapet complete the structure. A gabled, roofless building adjoins to the southeast with a door to the south and a window to the west.

The platforms are stone structures running east and west between Lasswade Road and Bonnyrigg Road. Rubble staircases with concrete steps rise from the south. Under the east stairs are a door and window; under the west stairs is a blocked door. An asbestos-roofed shelter stands on the west platform.