Rednal Station

Summary

Passenger station building for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Company, designed by Thomas Penson and opened in 1848.

Reasons for Designation

The former Station Building at Rednal, of 1848 by Thomas Penson for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its accomplished design, with good quality detailing and use of materials;
* as an interesting example of the Tudor Gothic style used for a small country station building;
* for the degree of survival; despite some alteration the original building survives well.

Historic interest:

* as a good example of a station building from the 'heroic age' of railway building, built for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway;
* for its association with the architect Thomas Penson.

Group value:

* it has strong group value with the adjacent Goods Shed.

History

The station at Rednal stands on the line which opened as the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway in October 1848. The Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Company (S&CRC) had been formed in 1846, following a merger of the North Wales Mineral Railway and the Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Chester Junction Railway. This merger allowed the new company to use sections of line which had already been constructed near Chester and Wrexham, with new tracks being laid to carry the line further south. The engineer for the line was Henry Robertson, with contractor Thomas Brassey in partnership with William Mackenzie and Robert Stephenson.

The station building at Rednal was designed by the architect Thomas Penson (junior) of Chester, who lived from around 1790 - 1859 and worked widely in the local area and in North Wales. His work was varied, including numerous country houses, churches and at least one cemetery. He seems to have designed most, if not all, of the original station buildings on the S&CRC line, many of which appear to survive. Those at Shrewsbury, Gobowen, Whittington and Baschurch are all listed at Grade II (NHLE numbers 1246546, 1054224, 1180264 and 1176173 respectively). These survivals also show the varying styles adopted for the different stations along the line, including Tudor Gothic, Italianate and Cottage Orne.

The station at Rednal had a passenger terminal as well as a goods shed, which was set off to one side of the railway. In 1854 the S&CRC line became part of the Great Western Railway, and in 1907 the station was renamed Rednal and West Felton. It is understood to have closed in the 1960s, and the station building appears to have been used as a residential dwelling for sometime since then. It is currently unoccupied.

Details

Passenger station building for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Company, designed by Thomas Penson and opened in 1848.

MATERIALS: the station is built of brick with stone dressings under a slate roof.

PLAN: the building lies immediately alongside the railway line, which here runs roughly south-east to north-west.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey station building is designed in a Victorian Tudor Gothic style. Windows, which are timber with mullions and transoms, and doors all have moulded stone surrounds with varying levels of detailing; that to the main entrance door is a moulded Tudor arch with carved spandrels. This entrance is in a projecting gable which have rock-faced rustication to its edges, as does a larger gable adjacent. The tall chimneys have diagonally-placed stacks. There is a single-storey wing to the south-east with a further doorway and stone copings with a carved finial to its gable end.

The design is effectively mirrored on the elevation which faces the railway line. Historic photographs show that this originally had a covered loggia projecting which originally had a parapet roof and later a hipped roof. This loggia is no longer extant. The gables here also have carved finials.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

Sources

Books and journals
Colvin, H, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, (1995), 798-799
Biddle, G, Britain’s Historic Railway Buildings, (2003), 312-316
Pevsner, N, Newman, J, The Buildings of England: Shropshire, (2006), 65, 134, 548
Parissien, S, The English Railway Station, (2014), 42-43

Other
Shropshire Historic Environment Record ref. 33100 & 05779

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