The English Railway Station: See photos from 200 years of British railway history
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
From the ancient Southampton station styled on an Italian town palace to the modern St Pancras, railway stations revealedClick on the picture to launch the gallery
The trainshed at Liverpool Street, opened in 1874 and pictured here during the 1960s. It was rebuilt in the mid-80s © English Heritage
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St Ives, Cornwall, before it was needlessly demolished in 1971 © English Heritage
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Brand new Portishead station, 1954; closed just ten years later © English Heritage
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Birmingham Snow Hill trainshed. Demolished in 1976, it was discovererd that the station was needed just a decade later © English Heritage
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Banbury Station, opened in 1959 © English Heritage
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The trainshed at St Pancras (1965) © English Heritage
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Waldhurst Station (built 1852) © English Heritage
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Cambridge Station (built in 1856, pictured in 1950) © English Heritage
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York station (completed in 1877, pictured in 1890) © English Heritage
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William Tite's Southampton (built in 1839). One of the earliest surviving railway buildings in England, it was designed in the form of an Italian town palace. Closed in 1966 © English Heritage
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Carlisle Citadel Station (opened in 1847) © English Heritage
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Liverpool Crown Street shortly after opening in 1830 © English Heritage
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There are 200 years of design and social evolution involved. Stockton, in County Durham, accommodated the house where people could buy tickets for the world’s first passenger railway, in 1825, and country stations became the hub of rural Victorian towns and villages, powered by a booming industry.
© English HeritageIsambard Kingdom Brunel, William Tite and Philip Hardwick are among the architects included, not forgetting station masters and their dogs.
Stations are also revealed as playing a vital role in eradicating regional time differences – in the pre-railway age, London and certain areas of the country could find their clocks 15 minutes apart.
- The English Railway Station by Steven Parissien is out now (English Heritage, £25).
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