There are highlights across the country including a memorial for the Beauchamp Lifeboat in Norfolk, Selfridges, on London’s Oxford Street, an 18th century shipwreck in Kent, as well as Retford’s Victorian train station café that was used to serve HM and Allied Forces meals during the Second World War.
Architect Henry Goddard designed Retford Railway Station, it was built between 1891 and 1892 by the Great Northern Railway. The station was designed in the Italianate villa style that was favoured by the railway company.
The station features impressive decorative ironwork on the platform canopy and within the dining and refreshment rooms still stands a rare example of original tiled finishes that have luckily survived beneath the plasterboard for years, and were recently uncovered by Bassetlaw Railway Society, who plan to restore the rooms.
The station was repurposed as a canteen and rest room by the Women’s Voluntary Service, during the Second World War, serving HM and Allied Forces over 2 million meals between 1940 and 1946.
Historic England stated that the reasons for the choice were:
Architectural interest: The very rare survival of the original finishes in the dining room and refreshment room, notable not only for their strong aesthetic quality and fine craftsmanship but for the particularly ornate nature of their design which was not at all common for public refreshment rooms at railway stations;
Its remarkably long and well-balanced composition in the Italianate style and decorative ironwork on the impressive platform canopy;
Its association with the Goddard family’s architectural practice, whose work has been extensively recognised on the statutory List.
Historic interest: Its well-preserved plan form, including the service rooms in the Stationmaster’s house, and its remarkably complete elevations with their original fenestration and platform canopy, which overall represent one of the most intact medium-sized GNR stations.
Source: historicengland.org.uk
