Torquay Station

Details

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

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

390766

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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