British Railway Architecture and Heritage

By Trevor Yorke

The majestic architecture of early railway buildings reflected the pride of the railway companies who commissioned them. These awe-inspiring structures ranged from classically-designed stations, waiting rooms and booking halls to mighty viaducts, tunnels and bridges. In this highly-illustrated book, filled with colour photographs and detailed drawings, Trevor Yorke describes the range of buildings associated with the golden age of steam. He explains the dynamics of their construction, the materials used and the myriad of styles employed by leading architects and engineers of the day. For everyone interested in the world of steam railways, this is an invaluable guide to the architectural legacy it left behind and the role the railways played in our social and industrial past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Countryside Books
• Release date: Apr 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781846748486

Trevor Yorke

Trevor Yorke is a professional author and artist who has studied and written about various aspects of England's architectural and industrial heritage. He has produced many illustrated books that introduce the reader to these topics and writes articles and reviews for various magazines. He lives in the UK.

Book preview

SECTION I

ARCHITECTURE

AND

ENGINEERING

CHAPTER 1

THE RAILWAY AGE

A SHORT HISTORY

FIG 1.1: CORFE CASTLE STATION, DORSET: This most romantic of settings for a railway station was all but lost when the branch line to Swanage was closed in 1972 after 87 years of service. However, a steam heritage railway was established in 1982 and thirteen years later Corfe Castle Station was reopened. Preserved lines like the Swanage Railway are not only an opportunity to see steam trains in all their glory but also give a glimpse of how station buildings originally appeared.

The architectural masterpieces and engineering wonders of the Railway Age were luxurious, fashionable and often groundbreaking. The Midland Railway’s St Pancras station in London was fronted by Gilbert Scott’s Midland Hotel, a Gothic Revival spectacle which was at the cutting edge of fashion. Behind it was William Henry Barlow’s huge, arched train shed which pushed the limits of engineering knowledge at the time. Even in humble towns, the station and its environment contained buildings which were vast in scale and lavished with stylish decoration, while the line itself could travel along imposing viaducts or through tunnel portals which resembled castles. Restored railways today illustrate that even in a small village a large number of structures were needed to service goods and passenger traffic and often dominated the community.

So why were these obviously expensive buildings and structures deemed a necessity by Victorian railway companies? Why did the Midland not just erect a functional station building at St Pancras? People had umbrellas so there was no need for a huge glass shed to keep them out of the rain; and surely there were plenty of other hotels in the area to save the company lavishing a fortune on that vast Gothic structure. Why were local stations such a jumble of different structures and what was the point in building a fashionable brick or stone booking hall when it was only for selling a few tickets and keeping passengers dry for ten minutes?

Before looking in detail at the buildings and structures erected by architects and engineers from the 1820s through to the 1960s, we need to answer these questions. This brief history outlines some of the key facts in the development of the Victorian network which resulted in such a rich architectural and engineering heritage that is only now beginning to be appreciated.

FIG 1.2: HIGH PEAK JUNCTION, CROMFORD, DERBYS: The Cromford and High Peak Railway was opened in 1831 and, like the earlier tramways, had a series of incline planes (steep sections of track up which wagons were hauled by a static steam engine) with horses initially used between these. The workshops in this view are at the junction with the Cromford Canal where goods were transferred. These buildings dating from the late 1820s are amongst the oldest of their type in the world.

THE FIRST RAILWAYS

The principle that heavy loads were easier to move if wheels ran along rails dates back to Ancient Greece, although it was not until the late 16th century that it was put into practical use in this country. Short waggonways built to carry coal from collieries to rivers or the coast appear from this date in Northumberland, Nottinghamshire and Shropshire; at first, with wooden wheels on wooden rails but, by the 1770s, iron was being used for both. By this time, tracks were being laid to bring stone or coal down to the new canals either using conventional rails with flanged wheels or, from the 1780s onwards, more simple L-shaped rails with flat edged wheels. The latter were usually termed ‘plateways’ or ‘tramways’ although dirt clogging them up meant conventional rails became standard in the long term. At this stage these lines usually had waggons pulled by horses with stationary steam engines hauling trains up steep inclines, sometimes involving substantial engineering works and a few functional buildings of which little survives today.

From the turn of the 19th century the speed of development and scope of ambition began to increase. The Surrey Iron Railway of 1803 was the first public tramway which was designed to be a common carrier on which separate companies could run their own services; and the following year the Oystermouth and Swansea Railway opened which soon became the first passenger line.

Around this time Richard Trevithick was experimenting with steam-powered locomotives with mixed success so that even when the first fully fledged railways were being planned in the 1820s many were still intended to be used by horses. The first of these, the Stockton to Darlington line opened in 1825, was run like a turnpike trust. Tolls were charged for anyone running services along it and the ensuing chaos meant the company soon took responsibility for the trains as well. In fact, the facilities and even carriages on the earliest lines mirrored those of the stagecoaches they were competing with. The Liverpool to Manchester Railway, opened in 1830, clearly demonstrated the potential of steam locomotives and the profits which could be made from building lines. It contained major engineering works and some of the first pieces of railway architecture which still survive today. The principal main lines linking most major towns and cities were built from the late 1830s through to the 1850s, with over 5,000 miles laid in the mania of the 1840s alone.

BUILDING RAILWAYS

The promoters of these railways faced many problems. Firstly, concerns about traction between iron wheels and rails meant engineers designed these early railways with impressively shallow gradients. This resulted in the need for more major engineering works than may have been necessary and, hence, greater expense. Opposition was also faced from the gentry who had financial interests in canals and turnpike trusts and people like the Duke of Wellington who were filled with horror at the potential for these new railways to encourage the lower classes to travel. These landowners charged huge sums for passage across their estates, thus using up a large part of the railway’s budget on land purchase. Alternatively, the railway line was forced into strange sweeping courses to avoid them. This problem was made worse because most of those promoting railways were industrialists from the north, often of Nonconformist and notably Quaker backgrounds (the latter of whom were barred from holding office) and who had little influence in Parliament. Hence, MPs often became involved in the schemes, with one being a director of over twenty different railway companies.

FIG 1.3: A station in the heyday of the railways, showing the wide range of buildings and features which could be found in even the smallest village or town.

Fortunately, railways were being planned at a time when the large sums of money required to build them were readily available, especially after banks were able to have Joint Stock status from 1826, enabling them to be underpinned by more than six people. Also, until 1860, railway companies were the only ones permitted to raise capital from more than five investors. This meant that putting money into the railways usually guaranteed greater returns than even Government bonds. It was not the landed rich who took up the offer, though. Most of those backing the early railways were from the merchant classes, businessmen who believed in progress and technology and were prepared to take the risk. In the late 1850s, this risk was reduced when limited liability acts restricted their losses in the case of financial collapse or a disaster, to the amount they had invested in the projects.

FIG 1.4: OLD STATION, CURZON STREET, BIRMINGHAM: This grand Classical building was the original northern terminus of the first London to Birmingham main line opened in 1838. It is a Grade I listed building and is the oldest piece of monumental railway architecture in the world. Although currently boarded up in the midst of wasteland, it is planned to be incorporated within the HS2 scheme. The famous London arch which stood at Euston at the other end of the line was controversially demolished in 1962.

Although the Government placed certain restrictions on railway companies, it generally followed the Victorian ethos of self-help and interfered little in their schemes. As a result there was virtually no control over the development of the railway network, with many lines duplicated by competing companies or meandering off to block another’s entry to their area rather than serve worthwhile towns. This was also new territory so it was not clear where trade was going to come from; hence, stations along the line developed piecemeal. They could start as a platform and booking hall, then as goods traffic increased, loading facilities and sidings were built. If another line was added close by, extra platforms would be built or, as happened in some cases, they could be completely relocated. This is why many early stations became a jumble of buildings often in different styles and materials and scattered over a large area rather than in neatly planned compact units.

Despite the Duke of Wellington’s fears, the first railways, in fact, were aimed at the wealthy wishing to travel long distances. Like air travel in the 1950s and 60s, it was something fashionable and yet frightening. People needed reassurance that travelling at over 30 mph was safe and that this new form of transport was not just a ‘flash in the pan’. This is partly why the railway