Main Building and Footbridge, Rhyl Railway Station

The Main Building and Footbridge at Rhyl Railway Station demonstrate the character of a later 19th-century remodelling, but retain elements of Francis Thompson’s mid-19th century original station building. The main block is two storeys high, constructed of brown brick with yellow and red brick banded dressings, and has hipped slate roofs. The five-bay main block features an ashlar cornice with circular bosses, and a canted central entrance porch leading to the booking hall. Horned sash windows are fitted with horizontal marginal glazing bars, and the ground floor windows and doorways have cambered and shouldered heads. Historic photographs show a former grant porte-cochere extended across the entire frontage of this main block. Single-story linking ranges extend to either side, with the range to the left being longer and connecting to a set-back office and waiting room range, similarly detailed, but with an altered canted bay window to the right and paired central windows to the first floor. A gabled cross range is situated to the extreme left-hand side, followed by a five-bay partially opened fronted range, arcaded with cast iron columns, foliate capitals, and pierced spandrels. This section formerly included a loading bay for parcels and luggage, along with the Station Master’s Office. The extension to the extreme right-hand end continues the main platform canopy, wrapping around a boarded store at the southwest end of the platform.

The up platform is covered by a deep-pitched roof with a cantilevered canopy extending outwards to the platform edge, retaining a deep fretted valence. The roof and canopy are supported by square-section cast-iron columns and steel girders, braced longitudinally by lattice girders. Flat boarded ceilings are present on either side of the glazed central gable. The platform elevation of the main building features a rendered panelled frieze, repeating the brick detail of the front, with similar cambered and shouldered openings and sash glazing, including a canted bay window to a former Tea Room.

The cast-iron columns also support a steel-framed footbridge with a pitched roof and continuous glazing within a wood-panelled superstructure. Low red-brick lift towers with pyramidal roofs are located at either end. Twin flights of stairs rise from the southwest end of the up platform, retaining original cast-iron balustrades with pointed heads to the uprights and brass knobs on the handrails; the central handrail continues across the bridge to manage passenger flow. Similar paired staircases are present at the northeast end of the down-platform canopy, which is shorter than the up-platform canopy but of similar style and construction, with cast-iron columns and steel girders supporting the roof and canopy and its deep fretted valence.