Forth Banks, Goods Station (first)

The single most important piece of railway architecture of the 1860s in the area was the North Eastern Railway's Forth Banks Goods Station, designed by Thomas Prosser in 1866. The new goods station opened for freight in 1871, replacing a small goods shed of the former Newcastle and Carlisle Railway (one of the companies which amalgamated in 1854 to form the North Eastern Railway). Prosser gave the massive goods shed a pair of long, curved iron framed roofs with arched heads reminiscent of Dobson's Central Station and similar to the roof Prosser, himself, designed for York Station in the following decade. All that now survives of the goods shed is the undercroft, the south face of which is a sandstone wall pierced by arch headed openings. In 1904 a new goods station office was built at the end of the site, facing onto Forth Banks. This building, an imposing structure faced with brick and terracotta, may have been designed by William Bell (architect for the North Eastern Railway from 1877 to 1923). The following year Prosser's goods shed was cut in two by the building of the approach viaduct to the King Edward Bridge. Shortly afterwards it was extended to the east by the addition of a smaller, three storeyed shed built alongside the new goods station offices. This shed, which is a ferro-concrete building in a plain but functional neo-classical style, was built by L.G. Mouchel's Hennebique Company to a design by Bell. LISTED GRADE 2 .Existing fragments of the building as part of the 1904 Goods Station and the undercroft were recorded between 2011-2014. The undercroft was later demolished. During the stripping of the former goods yard as part of the same recording works timber setts and tracks and cobbles were revealed.