Surbiton Station (Photo: Ok2010 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
The (rather terse) description of the building in 'Architect Speak' is:-
Reinforced concrete, painted. Flat roof. 4 bay central tall single storeyed booking hall, flanked by low, narrow bays containing kiosks, curvng backwards to meet long, low wings. Continuous cantilevered canopy of concrete to centre and wings, with moulded edge. Clock tower to left with strong, but narrow cornice and horizontal strings to upper, set back part. Long square headed windows with narrow closely spaced mullions to booking hall. Original wood and bronze doors below, with triple bronze bars in front of long narrow windows. Central facia to canopy with "Surbiton" in sans serif capitals. Marble lined booking hall. Two long single storeyed buildings remain on platforms; also reinforced concrete, with rounded ends and horizontal glazing bars to windows. Built to contain offices, lavatories and waiting rooms.Similar ideas were employed in a number of suburban stations on the extensive electrified network, neatly reinforcing the impression that the Southern was a modern, forward-looking railway. Buildings with rounded ends (mentioned above) were a recurrent motif, being frequently applied to signal boxes of the period.
Former Wimbledon 'A' signal box on the right. The area is now controlled from Woking.
Railway architecture is one of my interests and my collection of pictures Railways (UK) includes a number of photographs of buildings, bridges and other constructions (now termed 'the built environment'). Having introduced one outstanding Southern Railway building above, I thought I'd make reference to a few other Southern Railway buildings. The Southern Railway was formed by the amalgamation of the London and South Western Railway, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway and other minor companies in the 1923 'Grouping'.
I've written about the L.S.W.R. terminus at Waterloo here and my pictures are here
Victoria Station is two stations, side-by-side, one for the L.B.S.C.R., one for the S.E.C.R., as described in my post here. My pictures of Victoria are here.
Clapham Junction is a combination of L.S.W.R. and L.B.S.C.R. routes, described here with my pictures here.
There are also pictures of railway buildings in the set London: former 'Southern' lines, in the set London's Railways (although not all the buildings in this set are former Southern Railway) and in the set London Bridge Station.
Related articles on other sites
Surbiton Railway Station (Wikipedia).
Subiton Station.
The Southern Railway (Wikipedia).
British Listed Buildings.
I hope to return to this theme in the future.
