Former Reading Room For Wolverton Railway Works
FORMER READING ROOM FOR WOLVERTON RAILWAY WORKS, STRATFORD ROAD
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1390779
- Date first listed:
- 06-Feb-2004
- List Entry Name:
- Former Reading Room For Wolverton Railway Works
- Statutory Address:
- FORMER READING ROOM FOR WOLVERTON RAILWAY WORKS, STRATFORD ROAD
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1390779
- Date first listed:
- 06-Feb-2004
- List Entry Name:
- Former Reading Room For Wolverton Railway Works
- Statutory Address 1:
- FORMER READING ROOM FOR WOLVERTON RAILWAY WORKS, STRATFORD ROAD
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- FORMER READING ROOM FOR WOLVERTON RAILWAY WORKS, STRATFORD ROAD
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- District:
- Milton Keynes (Unitary Authority)
- Parish:
- Wolverton and Greenleys
- National Grid Reference:
- SP 82036 41367
Details
891/0/10003 STRATFORD ROAD 06-FEB-04 Wolverton Former Reading Room for Wolverton Rail way Works
GV II Former Reading Room, for the London and Birmingham Railway, empty at the time of inspection (2003). 1839 with minor C20 alterations. Red brick in English Bond. with some stone dressings. Hipped slate roof with roof lights and ridge ventilators. Restrained Classical style. EXTERIOR: Long east elevation to Canal has 6 first floor windows with some of those to ground floor blocked by a lower addition; slightly lower single bay to rear. West elevation faces the 1846 former locomotive shed (q.v.), to which it is attached with later in-fill structures. Windows have steel frames with 12 lights, under stone lintels with keyblocks. INTERIOR: Not inspected HISTORY: Built in 1839 as a reading room for the London and Birmingham Railway at the Wolverton Works, which had opened the previous year. The first buildings constructed were a passenger station, workshop, gas works, and five rows of houses; the reading room was one of several buildings constructed immediately afterwards to serve the social and spiritual needs of the railway employees. As a library and reading room it had 700 books and numerous periodicals; the building also served as a Wesleyan Chapel before the Chapel was built, and fulfilled several light industrial uses in the later C19 and early C20. SOURCES: West, Bill. The Trainmakers: The Story of Wolverton Works. Barracuda Books, 1982. Head, F.B. Stokers and Pokers; or the London and North Western Railway, 1849.
The 1839 brick former Reading Room is listed as an early and interesting example of social provision within a large scale works that has strong group value, and that survives relatively unaltered as an historically important component of the nationally important Wolverton Railway Works.
Group value with the other listed railway buildings at Wolverton, particularly the adjacent Former Railway Works Building (q.v.)
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 491609
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 07-Jun-2026 at 00:22:12.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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