Description

ISLINGTON

TQ3181NE COWCROSS STREET
635-1/77/349 (North side)
17/05/94 Farringdon LRT Underground Station

II

Includes: Nos.36-38 AND 40-42 COWCROSS STREET.
The former Farringdon and High Holborn Station of the
Metropolitan Railway, now a station shared by London
Underground and British Rail under LRT management.The front
building, to Cowcross Street, of 1922 by Charles Walter Clark;
the train shed of 1865. Brick faced with white faience, some
granite dressings and white and yellow exposed brick; glazed
roof to front building so far as visible, the train shed is a
glazed cast-iron construction supported on iron piers and with
stock brick flank walls of the same date. The front building
is all-but symmetrical to Cowcross Street with centrepiece of
three bays containing the entrance; and three bays to either
side with single-storey shop wings projecting forwards, each
housing three shops and slightly overlapping the centrepiece.
Central entrance with one broad flat-arched opening under a
segmental moulding and two narrower segmental-arched openings
to either side; London Transport metal and glazed awning now
projecting from the fascia; shops have curved corners and are
divided from each other by panelled pilasters supporting an
entablature and blocking course. The shop fronts obscured by
late C20 signage. Upper windows flat-arched with moulded
architraves and panels between; quoins to centrepiece and
outer corners; fascia with faience lettering; mutule cornice
and stepped blocking course. In the return to Turnmill Street,
flat-arched entrance with granite architrave including triple
keystone; small flat-arched windows with keystones to ground
floor, fascia panel for former Parcels Office, and six
narrower flat-arched windows interspersed with panels to the
first floor. Beyond that, three bays with round-arched windows
under keystone remain from the 1865 station. Three platforms
roofed by two shallow segmental-arched trussed and glazed
roofs. Outer walls of yellow brick set in English bond and
articulated by pilasters with two blank arches between: eleven
such bays to the west side, ten to the east; various
round-arched and segmental openings.The roofs are carried in
the middle by paired metal columns with geometrical detailing
at the capitals and decorative metal brackets. The front
building is carried over the tracks by two segmental-arched
bridges detailed in black brick. Farringdon Station was built
as the terminus of the world's first underground railway, the
Metropolitan Railway, which ran from here to Paddington.
(Historians' file, English Heritage London Division).

Listing NGR: TQ3157581832

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27084178

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

• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)