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Monument Types

• WAITING ROOM (19TH CENTURY AD to Unknown - 1889 AD)

Associated Events

• Shrub Hill Station waiting room (Ref: WCM101217)

Protected Status

• Listed Building

Full description

Shrub Hill Station: waiting room to east platform
SHRUB HILL
SO8555SE
620-1/14/519
05/04/71
(Formerly Listed as: SHRUB HILL Shrub Hill Railway Station. East Platform at Shrub Hill Railway Station)

GV II*

Waiting room, now office and waiting room.

c1880. Iron frame made by the Vulcan Iron Works, Worcester, with panels of glazed ceramic tiles by Maw and Company; concealed flat roof.

EXTERIOR: single storey, 3:1:3 bays, the centre is set back. Bays articulated by paired columns with decorative capitals on plinths which break forward from panelled dado; surmounting frieze and modillion cornice. Bays have paired 1/1 round-arched sashes in moulded surrounds, windows to recess have paired columns between. Entrances in centre returns: part-glazed, double doors with semi-circular-arched heads, glazing has Y-tracery, doors have lower raised and fielded panels with bolection mouldings. The tiles are richly coloured and in a variety of patterns: those to dado have star pattern, those to frieze have Greek key.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the Vulcan Iron Works, manufacturers of railway equipment, operated from the south side of Shrub Hill Road from 1857; by 1903 the company was known as McKenzie and Holland. The two platforms and four lines of rails at Shrub Hill Station were originally covered by a curved roof of wrought-iron lattice girders and glazed on the ridge-and-furrow principle; this was removed c1936.

(Worcester Daily Times: Worcester at Work: Worcester: 1903-: 8; Country Life: 23.11.1961). {1}


entry from TACS Ceramic Location database http://www.tilesoc.org.uk/ with additional sources {2}

Shrub Hill Station - iron and tile building, addition 1889 far platform - GE 11p9 & 25p9 & HHp108 & LI & TinA p114
Sources:
GE: ??
HH: Tony Herbert and Kathryn Huggins, The Decorative Tile in Architecture and Interiors (Phaidon Press, London, 1995)
LI: TACS Location Index
TinA: Hans van Lemmen, Tiles in Architecture (Laurence King, London, 1993)


The waiting rooms were constructed after the original station shed arcade of the 1850s but almost certainly prior to the 1868 carriage-shed (the cast iron stanchions of which were inserted into the waiting rooms). The precise date of the waiting room construction is elusive, but occurred between 1857-1868, probably 1860-64. The form of the waiting rooms strongly suggests that they were built primarily to exhibit the range of tiles manufactured by Maws & Co, and perhaps equally the quality of iron castings by the Vulcan Ironworks, founded in 1857. Both companies had local roots, though Maws had moved production to Broseley by 1852. The building was possibly designed as an exhibition “pavilion”, but there is no evidence that it was previously erected elsewhere. It is very unlikely that the building was specifically designed for its present location at Shrub Hill, as it does not fit the rhythm of the arcade in the main station over-building. It cannot date earlier than 1857, as the Vulcan Ironworks was not founded until that date, and therefore must have been a secondary addition to the station. It also partially sits over a cellar that apparently related to an earlier structure. The waiting rooms were certainly in place before the station-shed wall was strengthened with an additional brick skin in the early 1870s, as the additional thickness does not extend behind the waiting-room structure.

The waiting rooms have a highly ornate exterior of thin cast-iron panels and mouldings inset with polychrome tile panels. Cast iron facades are very rare in England, and the combination of cast iron and early ceramic tiling seen here appears to be nationally unique. The structure is supported by internal 9” brickwork which lines the cast-iron work. The cast-iron façade is held in place by spike, lugs and screws into timber plugs built into the brickwork. The cornice is held by a series of cast iron plates forming a flat “ring-beam”. The structure was formerly capped by a parapet wall of similar construction, but this was removed in c.1938 to permit the construction of a lower canopy (replacing the original 1850s glazed over-roof).

The tiled panels are set in openings in the iron façade, and are mortared onto the brickwork behind. The cast iron “string courses” are separate castings set between tile panels and screwed into timber plugs. All of the castings are of fine workmanship, and cast to very close tolerances. The tiled panels are an exuberant display of colour with a wide range of motifs, with both classical and Moorish influences. The tiles are early examples of Maws products, and include patterns unknown elsewhere, together with glazes that were soon discontinued.The arched head doors and windows are of traditional timber construction, but set in arched reveals formed from cast iron. The interior of the waiting-rooms is by contrast surprisingly sparse, and there is little evidence that it was ever adorned by ornamental details.

The southern-most bay of the waiting rooms is an extension, in brick and stucco, datingto the 1870s. It was clearly designed to mimic the existing cast iron facade, to the extent that the polychrome tiling of the original was simulated by complex stencil-work painting of the stucco. The plinth panels were formed using real tiles, which are indistinguishable from their counterpart on the 1860s fabric, and therefore were presumably still available at that date.

The programme of restoration included the underpinning, structural repair and strengthening of the facade of the southern waiting room, and tile repairs to both waiting rooms. The northern waiting room is now almost ready to be brought back into use, whilst the southern waiting room awaits completion of repairs and a decision as to its future function.{3}

Sources and further reading

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