Description

TORQUAY

SX9063 RATHMORE ROAD
885-1/17/2 Torquay Station
26/03/86

GV II

Railway station. 1878, extended in 1912. JE Danks and W
Lancaster-Owen; engineers, Vernon and Ewens of Cheltenham for
the Great Western Railway. Snecked and rock-faced grey
limestone with probably Bathstone dressings including quoins,
stringcourses, eaves cornice and windows. Welsh slate roof
with lead roll hips and ridges; steeply pitched hipped
pavilion roofs with ornate iron cresting. Rendered chimney
stacks. French Chateau style influence.
EXTERIOR: 2 ranges of station buildings, one on either side of
the line. On the west side, a long range containing offices,
entrance, ticket office etc, with a canopy on the outside over
the pavement and a deeper canopy on 11 columns, the last 2
paired under the footbridge. These are signed Vernon & Ewens,
engineers, Cheltenham. There is a similar range on the
opposite side of the line, but of shorter length, its platform
canopy continues beyond the north end but stops short of the
south end. At the south end of each range there is a stair
tower rising to a covered footbridge over the line. The east
range has 4 pavilion roofs where the facade facing the
forecourt breaks forward at intervals; the roofs have
decorative iron cresting, that at the south end has a
clerestory roof against the stair tower behind. The windows
have stone mullioned and transomed frames.
The forecourt canopy is supported on large cast-iron brackets
with foiled spandrels. The deeper canopy over the platform has
a continuous rooflight over cast-iron 4-centred-arched trusses
with entwined foliage spandrels supported on slender fluted
cast-iron columns; the canopy is cantilevered out towards the
line on similarly decorated brackets and has a fretted and
pierced wooden fascia. The canopy was extended in early C20
under the bridge and beyond the south end, and both platform
canopies were extended at the north end in 1912. The west
range and its canopies are similar but shorter.
The 2 stair towers at the south end are linked by a covered
lattice iron girder footbridge over the line, its
superstructure is timber and glazed.
HISTORY: The railway line from Newton Abbot to Torquay was
built by the South Devon Railway Company in 1848 but only
reached Torre station, Newton Road (qv). The line was extended
to Paignton in 1859 when Torquay Station was opened. In 1876
the South Devon Railway was taken over by the Great Western
Railway who built this station in 1878 to replace the 1859
station.

Listing NGR: SX9054163493

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Torquay railway station at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q763074

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)