Retford Railway Station was built 1891-1892 by the Great Northern Railway (GNR) on the site
of an earlier station which had originally opened in 1852. This had mostly consisted of timber
structures probably designed by the GNR's architect Henry Goddard who was responsible for
most of the other stations built on this line between 1850 and 1852. The facilities at the
station were later found to be insufficient for the large number of passengers resulting from
Retford’s important position at the junction of the York to London and Lincoln to Manchester
lines, so in 1886 the GNR announced that they were to be improved. After a delay of several
years, it was reported in the Retford Times (21 November 1890) that the GNR had ‘ordered
such additions to the station as will make it practically a new one. A new and extensive range
of white brick buildings, comprising waiting rooms, refreshment rooms, and all necessary
buildings required for a complete station will be erected.’
The new station, built in the Italianate villa style favoured by the GNR, was constructed by
Messrs Arnold and Sons of Doncaster at a cost of approximately £17,000. It was designed by
Goddard but it is not known whether it was Henry Goddard who was responsible. He was still
working in the 1890s but he belonged to a prolific and successful family practice based in
Leicester, which came to be known as Goddard, Paget and Goddard, so another architect in
the partnership could have carried out the design. There are many buildings on the List
associated with this practice, notably the Grade II* listed former Leicestershire Banking Co.
Headquarters on Granby Street (1872-74) and the prominent Grade II listed Gothic revival
Clock Tower in the Haymarket (1868), both in Leicester.
The first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1886 and 1899 depict two signal boxes
to the north and south of the station, both of which were removed in 1961. The buildings
shown on the far side of the tracks on the 1899 map have also been removed and replaced by
a plain brick, flat-roofed waiting room (which is not included in this assessment). In 1931 the
old booking office was modernised, although some of the original panelling was retained.
Between 1940 and 1946 the Women’s Voluntary Service used the station as a canteen and
rest room serving HM and Allied Forces 2,284,000 meals during the Second World War.
MATERIALS: white brick laid in Flemish bond with darker gault brick dressings and a slate
roof covering.
PLAN: the station is located on the east side of the rail tracks and has a very long, linear plan
roughly aligned north-south. The original plan, which has changed very little, is shown on the
architect’s plans to have consisted of (from the left): urinals, office, ladies’ second class
waiting room, anteroom and WCs, ladies’ first class waiting room, the Stationmaster’s house,
dining room, refreshment room, gentlemen’s waiting room, Inspector’s office, booking hall, booking office, parcels and cloakroom, telegraph office, public office, Stationmaster’s office,
urinals, Porter’s room, Guard’s room, lamp room and fish store.
EXTERIOR: the station is in the Italianate style and is mostly one storey, except for the
two-storey Stationmaster’s house. The pitched roof has wide overhanging eaves supported
by shaped wooden brackets, a dentilled brick cornice and tall chimney stacks with oversailing
brick courses and original panelled square pots. The regular fenestration consists of
two-over-two pane horned sash windows set under segmental, keyed brick arches with stone
lintels. A moulded brick string course runs just below the impost of the arches, giving the
impression of pilasters in between the recessed windows. Each room is articulated externally,
breaking up the general uniformity of the long building’s design. The rooms in this description
are named after those on the original plans.
From the left, the urinals are lit by a group of four windows with their lower sections bricked in,
followed by a group of three windows lighting the office. The ladies’ second class waiting
room is distinguished by a projecting gabled bay with moulded wooden bargeboards and a
sawtooth cornice. It is pierced by three windows and has a blind circular feature in the gable
head with a moulded brick surround. After this, the anteroom and WCs are lit by four windows
with their lower sections bricked in, followed by the ladies’ first class waiting behind a gabled
bay, and then a door with a two-light segmental arch overlight, leading to the yard of the
Stationmaster’s house. This two-storey house has four bays and a sawtooth string course. Its
roofline is broken by a gable in the first bay and by a slightly projecting gable over the last two
bays. The ground floor is lit by three windows in the same style as those already described
but with moulded brick edging to the brick arches. The four-panel door in the fourth bay is
sheltered by a simple wooden canopy supported by shaped wooden brackets. There are four
first-floor windows. The recessed, two-storey section to the right, which houses the public
dining room with bedrooms above (belonging to the Stationmaster’s house) has a
single-storey projection with two windows to the pantry and the china and glass store. Another
window to the right lights the dining room, and there are two windows above, the second
under a gable.
Next are two groups of three windows to the refreshment room and gentlemen’s waiting room
respectively, followed by two single windows to the office and store. The booking hall is
distinguished by projecting triple gabled bays with a sawtooth cornice and string course, and a
glazed porte cochère with a ridge and furrow roof and valence. It is supported by octagonal
iron columns with shaped brackets. The central bay contains a pair of wide doorways (the
doors since replaced), divided by a square iron column with recessed mouldings, with large
four-pane overlights. The flanking bays have pairs of windows, those to the left being bricked
up (as part of the original design). The left bay has been heightened by the addition of
another storey.
After this is the following: the projecting gabled bay of the booking office; four windows lighting
the parcels and cloakroom, the last window having been pierced to create a door; the
projecting gabled bay of the telegraph office; a single window to the public office; two windows
to the Stationmaster’s office; two partly bricked up windows to the urinals; four windows
lighting the Porter’s room and Guard’s room; three windows to the lamp room; and lastly a
carriage access to the fish store with iron gates that appear to be original.
On the platform-facing elevation, the architectural treatment is very similar to the front
elevation, except for the large pitched roof canopy that runs the length of the platform. This
has a slender iron frame and is supported by round iron columns with moulded bases and
fluted conical capitals with octagonal dentilled caps from which spring four ornate iron
brackets pierced with scroll and wheel decoration. Some of the four-panel doors remain but
others have been replaced in the C20.
INTERIOR: the original plan form has remained little altered and elements of the internal
joinery and decoration survive well, most notably in the former dining room, refreshment room
and Stationmaster’s house. Throughout the building, the moulded window surrounds are
intact, as are a good number of four-panel doors in their moulded surrounds, although most of
the fireplaces have been either removed or blocked up.
The dining room is tiled from floor to ceiling, consisting of a dado with raised pattern tiles
forming large cream panels bordered by blue, green and mustard. Above the dado, white tiles
are grouped in fours, divided by strips of green tiles with blue squares at the corners. The
frieze is of mustard tiles with a raised pattern, the whole completed by a moulded cornice.
The highly decorative floor is tiled in a geometric pattern of blue, white and brown, edged in
chevron and anthemion. The floor pattern contains two large squares edged in bead
moulding, bead and reel, and a scalloped pattern, containing a central diamond filled with
stylised foliage and fleur-de-lys. The fireplace has a wide black surround with fluted jambs, a
panelled frieze, tiled hearth and cast iron grate.
A historic photograph (taken around the turn of the C20) of staff in the refreshment room
shows that it had the same tiled floor, walls and dado as the dining room. The tiled floor
survives, as does part of the dado but the tiling on the upper walls is no longer visible. In an
adjoining small glazed lobby, the wall lining has been removed revealing the original tiling, so it
is possible that this survives in part or full in the refreshment room also. The original long
panelled counter remains with its moulded square panels and fluted wooden brackets
supporting the counter, although this has been replaced. The low built-in cupboard behind the
counter also appears to be original but it has lost some of its doors.
The entrance hall and corridor of the Stationmaster’s house has a red and black tiled floor laid
in a carreaux d’octagones pattern. The walls of the kitchen and scullery are lined floor to
ceiling in brick-shaped white tiles. These rooms have back-to-back fireplaces but only one
cooking range partially survives. The scullery has a flagstone floor. A small sitting room
behind the kitchen retains a small round-arch fireplace with a surround of glazed brown tiles
resembling brick and a tiled hearth. The open well staircase which has a closed panelled
string, turned balusters and shaped newel posts, provides access to the five bedrooms.
These have skirting boards, cornices and narrow wooden floorboards. The bathroom is lined
full-height in white and cream tiles with a dado in a blue fret design.
Some other original fixtures and fittings survive elsewhere in the building. The booking hall is
lit from above by a large raised lantern with panelling around the opening, and some of the tall
rectangular panelling has been retained above the ticket desk and to the left of the entrance.
The former waiting rooms (one of which is now a coffee shop) retain wooden dados and
picture rails; and the former Stationmaster’s office retains a moulded cornice. The former
Porter’s room and Guard’s room have been opened up to form one room but the wooden floor
laid in herringbone has been retained. The lamp store and fish store at the northern end of
the building have glazed brick dados, and the latter room has a king post roof.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: at the northern end of the station, a pair of tall square piers in
white brick with blue brick quoins and pyramidal caps, flank the opening to what is now the car
park. On the right-hand side, a wall that is shown on the 1899 OS map extends to the
north-west. It is constructed of red brick laid in English bond and has saddleback coping.