Shrub Hill Railway Station, Worcester, Worcestershire

Summary

Railway station, 1852, rebuilt 1865 to the designs of Edward Wilson, engineer for the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway.

Description

Railway station, 1852, rebuilt 1865 to the designs of Edward Wilson, engineer for the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway.

MATERIALS: constructed from blue brick laid in English bond with Bath stone dressings, with red brick to secondary elevations. The basement arcade is a red brick construction with stucco render. The roof is slate.

PLAN: the railway passes north-south through Shrub Hill, and the station stands to the west of the tracks. The station building is a long, roughly rectangular range; it stands on elevated ground and is approached from the west by curved ramps on either side, between which there is a sunken forecourt with an arcade to basement-level storage units.

EXTERIOR: a classical building of one and two storeys. The two-storeyed main range is a symmetrical composition with 4:1:3:1:4 bays articulated by rusticated quoins and pilasters, with a porte cochere in front of the central section. Window openings all have flat-arched moulded stone architraves, with scroll consoles and cornices to the outer bays of the ground floor and pediments to the single bays. Windows are six-over-six sashes on the ground floor and three-over-three above. The plinth, cill band, string course and cornice are dressed stone, contrasting with the blue brick. This main range has a hipped slate roof with several brick chimneystacks. The port cochere has five pitched glazed bays to the roof, which is supported by cast iron Tuscan columns and has a dagger-board fascia. There are three wide openings to the booking hall; two windows with eight-over eight sashes, and a double doorway with six-panelled timber doors.

This main range is flanked by single-storey sections. These are plainer in their treatment, and have some simple stone dressings and brick banding. A brick parapet conceals the roofs. Their platform-facing elevations rise to two storeys, having originally supported the glazed roof crossing the tracks. There are lunette windows with radial, metal framed glazing. These double-height screen walls extend to either side of the flanking ranges and have gated openings with fanlights. There is a listed K6 telephone box to the left of the main entrance (NHLE ref 1486714).

Curving vehicle access ramps create a sunken forecourt in front of the station, where there is a 1:9:1 bay arcade to basement-level storage. Openings have round arches with moulded stucco. There is stone string course, above which the elevation rises to form the balustrade to the roadway and porte cochere. There is a pair of cast-iron lamps on parapet wall identified as manufactured by Revo of Tipton.

The platform-facing elevation is red brick with a matchboarded dado. There is a series of openings with moulded architraves, giving access to the booking hall and ancillary accommodation; some four-panel doors survive, along with eight-over-eight sashes. The platform canopy was installed after the glazed roof structure above the platforms and tracks was removed in 1938; the canopy is constructed from a series of riveted iron posts with axial and cross trusses. Two overbridges link the platform; one roughly centrally, and a second goods bridge to the northern end of the platforms. The central bridge has solid panelled balustrades; the pitched roof structure and iron trusses are presumed to have been added in the 1930s. The bridge is reached by stairs with broad moulded handrails and cast iron newels; balustrades have been infilled. The goods bridge, restored in 2021 has an iron lattice balustrade replicating the original, with a pitched roof covering.

INTERIOR: within the original booking hall part of the stone-flagged floor survives. Some of the offices retain plaster cornices, picture rails, panelled reveals to door openings and moulded architraves. The K8 telephone box on Platform 1 is listed at Grade II (NHLE ref 1393363).

History

The railway first came to Worcester in 1850, via a single line standard gauge connection to the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway at Abbotswood Junction. Operated by the Midland Railway, this opened on 5 October 1850 to a temporary station, the precise location of which is unknown, although it is likely to have been to the south of the present site, adjacent to Newtown Road, then a principal turnpike serving the City. Its name derives from Shrub’s Hill House, through whose orchard the line passed. The Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway opened between Worcester and Droitwich on 18 February 1852, with a formal opening on 1 May 1852 by a special train between Evesham and Stourbridge: the line opened fully to Wolverhampton for goods in April 1854, and to passengers on 1 July that year. It is likely that a more permanent station to serve Worcester opened at the same time, this being constructed and operated as a joint venture between the Midland and the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton railways, which later became part of the Great Western Railway company. Little information is available about this original station, though it is reported to have been much criticised, and was substantially rebuilt in 1865 to the designs of Edward Wilson, who, from 1858, was Locomotive and Permanent Way Engineer for the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway. This rebuilding may have been instigated by the destruction of a carriage shed in a fire in 1864.

The new station’s two platforms and four lines of rails were originally covered by a glazed ridge-and-furrow roof of wrought-iron lattice girders; this was removed in 1938. The present platform canopies were added at this point.

The northern goods overbridge was replaced in 2021, replicating the original structure.

The railway station continues to operate using semaphore signals. At the north end of the east platform are a lower quadrant stop signal and a lower quadrant stop and distant signal. While the iron posts, topped with a finial, appear to be original, the brackets and equipment appears to have been replaced. The west platform has disc signalling.

Shrub Hill was a terminus for Motorail, a British Rail service in operation in the second half of the C20 which enabled cars to be transported by train. Passengers could drive their cars onto special ‘Carflat’ wagons, where they were secured down, and travel in a railway carriage on the same train, driving their car off at the other end. A utilitarian canopied structure and sidings survive to the south of Platform 1.

Reasons for Listing

Shrub Hill Railway Station is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a striking composition, where the symmetrical station building with porte cochere stands at the crest of curved paired ramps, above a sunken forecourt with basement arcade;
* an architecturally accomplished design, with a formal Italianate façade in blue brick with Bath stone dressings, and a more domestic platform-facing elevation in red brick;

Group value:

* the principal listed railway building at Shrub Hill, with close visual relationships with the Grade II*-listed waiting room, and Grade II-listed telephone kiosks.

External Links

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