Former Railway Mission

Reasons for Designation

The former Railway Mission in Norwich, built 1901-1903, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: it is one of few known examples of a purpose-built hall by the Railway Mission, an evangelical organisation established in 1881
* Architectural Interest: it is an architecturally sophisticated example of a usually modest, pre-fabricated building type, designed by a pre-eminent Norwich-based architectural practice with over thirty listed buildings to its name
* Intactness: although a suite of rooms has recently been inserted, the original key elements of the hall, including the stage, pulpit, roof and windows, have survived intact; and such is the rarity of the building type that it warrants designation despite the modern (but reversible) intervention
* Historic Interest: for its association with the railway and the evangelical response to the working conditions it imposed; both of which are defining aspects of the Victorian period

Details

1188/0/10152 PRINCE OF WALES ROAD 06-JAN-11 79 Former Railway Mission

II Former Railway Mission, built to the design of Edward Boardman and Sons, 1901-1903.

MATERIALS: Red brick with stone dressings and a tiled, chamfered plinth. The pitched roof is covered with Welsh slates.

PLAN: Long, rectangular plan with the principal elevation on Prince of Wales Street and rear elevation on Rose Lane.

EXTERIOR: The double-height building is fronted by a single triangular gable with a stone-coped parapet. The centrally placed, glazed double-door has a five-pane over-door light and lugged architrave. On either side is a six over six sash window in a moulded square-headed architrave. These apertures are joined at lintel level by a moulded string course, above which is a chequered frieze of red bricks and stone. In the centre of the frieze, above the door, is a stone tablet decorated on either side with an Art Nouveau fruit tree branch and bearing the raised lettering 'RAILWAY MISSION'. Above the frieze a Diocletian-style window spans the width of the façade. The three windows are set within raised moulded architraves, the central one being lugged, with the red brick in between suggesting the mullions. There are seven regularly spaced keystones in the semi-circular moulded arch and stylised carved acanthus leaves at each foot.

INTERIOR: A double-height hall with a timber-ribbed, canted ceiling and decorative timber brackets supported on moulded corbels. The south wall contains a group of three small, splayed, round-headed stained glass windows. Beneath this there is a timber-panelled stage with an incorporated three-sided pulpit in the centre, each side decorated with a triple, carved Art Nouveau design containing brass memorial plates. The rear door of the hall opens into a quarry-tiled lobby that has fitted cupboards and leads down into the basement. In around 2004 the interior was renovated and at the north (entrance) end of the open hall a single-storey suite of rooms, containing meeting and utility rooms, was constructed. It is only from the stage at the south end that the original hall can be seen.

HISTORY: The former Railway Mission on Prince of Wales Road was designed between 1901-3 by Edward Boardman and Sons, a prominent Norwich-based architectural practice. The Railway Mission was an evangelical organisation founded in 1881 to provide spiritual welfare and prayer meetings for railwaymen and their families who, due to their unsociable working hours, were often unable to attend regular church services. Meetings were therefore conducted in waiting rooms, canteens, and engine sheds, and in some areas purpose-built halls were erected. By 1900 there were four hundred groups dispersed throughout the country with a total of 7,000 members. In Norwich the railway station in Thorpe Road opened in 1886 but the Railway Mission had been established there three years earlier in order to provide services and meetings for the workers who were building it. At first the Mission held services in the school room at Princes Street Lecture Hall and in the waiting room at Thorpe Station (as Norwich Railway Station was formerly known) before being offered the use of St Andrew's Hall in 1885. In 1903 the Mission opened its own purpose-built hall in Prince of Wales Road which was a fitting location given that the road had been constructed specifically to connect the railway to the town. The Railway Mission continued to hold services in the hall until the late 1990s, and the building is now owned by the Norwich Evangelical Free Church. The interior was renovated in c.2004 to accommodate the present-day needs of the Church. A suite of single-height rooms was constructed within the original double-height hall at the east (entrance) end which now account for approximately two thirds of the floor space. It is impossible to see the open hall and its roof from these rooms but at the end of the suite a door leads out into the hall at the other (west) end of the building where the stage is located. The roof and stage have therefore remained intact but the original entrance hall and some of the panelling on the walls has been removed to accommodate the new rooms.

Boardman and Sons was founded by Edward Boardman (1833-1910) whose son, Edward Thomas Boardman (1861-1950) later joined the practice. The plans for the Railway Mission in Norfolk Record Office bear the name Boardman and Sons but it is unclear whether the design was by the father or son. Edward Boardman was a prolific architect, designing and restoring country houses, public buildings and churches in the area of Norwich, including the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital (Grade II), the former Primitive Methodist Chapel and Sunday School in Queens Road (both Grade II), and the conversion of Norwich Castle into a museum. His son was principally responsible for the buildings designed by the practice in the Edwardian period and he later became Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1905 and High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1933. Boardman and Sons have over thirty listed buildings to their name.

SOURCES Kay, Alison, 'The Railway Mission: struggling Evangelicalism in Post-war Britain', 2009 (unpublished MA essay, deposited at the National Railway Museum) Railway Signal (September 1884) Railway Signal (April 1885) Information about the Railway Mission and its 1928 Annual Report provided by the Archivist of the Railway Mission Bury St Edmunds: The Tin Tabernacle http://www.burystedmundsadventistchurch.co.uk/railwaymission.html accessed 07.06.2010

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The former Railway Mission, built to the design of Edward Boardman and Sons, 1901-1903, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Rarity: it is one of few known examples of a purpose-built hall by the Railway Mission, an evangelical organisation established in 1881 * Architectural Interest: it is an architecturally sophisticated example of a usually modest, pre-fabricated building type, designed by a pre-eminent Norwich-based architectural practice with over thirty listed buildings to its name * Intactness: although a suite of rooms has recently been inserted, the original key elements of the hall, including the stage, pulpit, roof and windows, have survived intact; and such is the rarity of the building type that it warrants designation despite the modern (but reversible) intervention * Historic Interest: for its association with the railway and the evangelical response to the working conditions it imposed; both of which are defining aspects of the Victorian period

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

508332

Legacy System:

LBS

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