Listed Building record MDR10355 - Railway warehouse, Stafford Street, Derby

Railway Warehouse, Stafford Street. Imposing two and three storey railway warehouse built by Kirk and Randall of Sleaford in 1877-8 to serve the Great Northern Railway's Friar Gate station goods yard. The windows are mainly segmental headed with iron casements. Access to the basement are was via a tunnel with an entrance from the Great Northern Road. The overall plan is unusual; a rectangular warehouse having a triangular office at its eastern end. Now (January 2003) it is in a very neglected state having suffered fire damage and repeated vandalism. (1) The Railway Warehouse was built for the Great Northern Railway at their Friargate Station in 1877-8 by Kirk & Randall of Sleaford. It is built from red brick with Welsh slate and glazed roofs with three brick chimney stacks to the east. It is an unusual plan of a rectangular warehouse with a triangular office block with a mezzanine floor, to the east. It is two and three storeys high, over a basement. There is a double chamfered plinth and moulded corbelled eaves cornice. The south elevation has twenty-one bays divided into groups of three by giant pilaster strips. The centre bay has a segmental arched entrance, otherwise the ground floor has segment headed windows with metal casements. There are similar windows above except for two bays with double doors and two bays with bracketed out timber hoist structures under oversailing gables, one partly demolished. The west elevation has 1-4-1 bays with mostly segment headed windows and a large tripartite railway entrance under a riveted box girder. Bays one and five step forward. The north elevation is similar to the south, but of 27 bays, the eastern end forming part of the offices and has three storeys with six segment headed sashes to each floor. There is a rounded corner to the acute north east angle, with tripartite arrangement of sashes to each floor. The office block with rounded acute angle was built to front onto the proposed approach road from Friary Street to Friargate Station. (2)