Survey Data
Reg No
50070375
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Previous Name
Midland Great Western Railway Company
Original Use
Workshop
In Use As
Office
Date
1845 - 1855
Coordinates
314962, 235436
Date Recorded
29/11/2012
Date Updated
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Description
Attached six-bay two-storey former railway works, built c.1850, having central two-bay breakfront to front (east) elevation, integral carriage arch, and full-height seven-bay return to rear (west) elevation, with double-pile sheds to rear of this. Now in use as offices and bus depot. Pitched slate roof with yellow brick chimneystacks having clay pots, cast-iron rainwater goods, granite coping, raised parapet wall to front with carved calp cornice and fascia over snecked cut calp to wall. Carved cornice over ground floor to breakfront. Snecked rubble calp to side elevations. Square-headed window openings, cut calp voussoirs, continuous calp platband forming sill course to first floor, replacement uPVC windows. Calp sills and twelve-over-twelve pane timber sash windows to ground floor, steel grilles to some. One window opening altered to form twelve-over-eight pane timber sash window over square-headed door opening with timber panelled door. Elliptical-arched carriage openings to breakfront to front, one forming integral carriage arch with timber battened double-leaf doors, calp voussoirs, carved calp string courses at impost level, window to north opening, with four nine-over-nine pane timber sash windows, calp sill, timber tympanum.
Appraisal
One of the major arteries which make up the former suburb of Phibsborough, Phibsborough Road is characterised by residential terraces. This former railway works, with its snecked calp walls and symmetrical facade, provides a visual and textural contrast to the predominant red brick of these terraces. Listed as "Midland Great Western Railway Co.'s Engine and Carriage Works" in Thom's Directory of 1880, it would have been used to build and maintain rolling stock. The retention of some timber sash windows adds a patina of age, while calp limestone detailing is testament to the skill and craftsmanship of workers in the mid nineteenth century, and is typical of the care taken in design and construction of railway buildings at the time.