Description

This record was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 8th November 2017.

1164
SE 0924 NE 19/340
2.

HORTON STREET
Halifax Railway Station

II

1855. Architect: Thomas Butterworth of Manchester. Contractors : George Thompson and Co. the well-known railway contractors. Built as a joint effort bythe Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Railway.Altered in the 1880s and the late C20.

The style is a Baroque version of the Palladian idiom. Finely jointed and crisply carved ashlar. Slate roofs, substantial chimneystacks. 236 feet long with a frontispiece projecting three feet and the end bays projecting six feet. Single-storey, the frontispiece of two storeys. Very deep modillion eaves cornice, with a frieze of scrolled consoles alternating with raised panels. Continuous ground floor sill band. Three bay- frontispiece breaking forward again in centre bay with a port-cochere cochere that was reconstructed in the 1990s. Round arched doorway with three arches, the outer one panelled, the next Tuscan, taking moulded voussoirs, the inner one also Tuscan, but with shorter pilasters that take a full entablature as transom to the fanlight. The two flanking sash windows are pilastered and pedimented with balustrades running between the panelled plinths of the pilasters.

The side wings each have six bays with sash windows with moulded architraves and panelled aprons. The wing's windows and doorways have scrolled consoles supporting alternate triangular and segmental pediments. Doors with moulded stone architraves with overlights and segmental pediments. The end bays project forward and have tripartite pilastered sashes with panelled aprons.

First floor of the frontispiece also breaks forward in the centre where it is flanked by paired rusticated pilasters which take a modillioned pediment in the tympanum on which is a carved achievement of the arms of Halifax. Central blind oculi with four keystones containing a clock face. Two heavily rusticated blind Diocletian windows with moulded keystones in the flanking bays.

Platform (east) side has a cast iron and timber canopy of 1885-1886 carried on a single row of columns (now glazed in) – this platform is no longer in use.

On the island platform (platforms 1 and 2) there is an 1885-1886 cast-iron and timber canopied awning taken on two rows of columns with ornamental capitals and brackets to the cantilevers, which have pierced geometrical tracery in the spandrels, and rows of rooflights. A simpler but similarly styled enclosed footbridge of the same date connects the island platform to a late-C20 entrance structure and has stair access down onto the platforms (the stair accessing the far west former platform has lost its treads and is disused). A lift shaft at the east end of the footbridge was added in the late C20 to provide additional access to the island platform.

In 1885-1886 the station was altered by William Hunt, regional architect to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway who added the platform canopies and footbridge. He also created a siding platform in front of the building with a further canopy; the front (west) elevation thus became a platform elevation. The west siding and canopy were removed in the late C20 and the land now forms part of landscaped grounds serving Eureka! The National Children’s Museum.

Listing NGR: SE0972724922

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Halifax railway station at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q2703979

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

• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair