Wrexham General Station: Entrance Building

Cadw's description

Location

Close by and below the A451 bridge carrying the road NW to Mold.

History

GWR station building, built c1875 as a replacement for the original provided by Henry Robertson for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Company, formed in 1846, and absorbed by the GWR in 1854. Later extensions and enlargement of platforms, 1909-12.

Exterior

Roughly coursed and squared stone with ashlar dressings and fishscale slate roof. Symmetrical single storeyed entrance range with outer pavilion blocks with wrought iron brattishing surmounted steep roofs. Central entrance in roll-moulded archway, flanked by cross-pane windows. Cornices over similar windows in pavilions (one now a doorway). Long range of offices, waiting rooms etc. Continuous to right, with similar openings.

Platform side has roll moulded arches to doorways and 4-pane fixed glazing to windows. Canopied opening links the original building with a later addition to the E in red brick with blue brick dressings. Overall platform canopy with glazed pitched roof carried on cast-iron columns with twisted enrichment to high bases, fluted shafts foliate capitals. These carry cambered iron ties with enriched scrolled rackets, supporting in turn cambered timber trusses with short chamfered king-posts. Similar brackets carry cantilevered canopy projecting to platform edge, terminating in fretted valences.

Reason for designation

A good example of GWR station architecture, which, with its fine canopy, survives intact.