Railway Reflection

The Oxford Road Railway Station reflecting its surrounding in the late afternoon sun.  The original station on this site was opened in 1849 but became dilapidated and was demolished when the line was electrified and modernised, being rebuilt in 1960 (and  recently refurbished in 2004).  I have not been able to find a photograph of the 19th Century station but it was lucky to be rebuilt before the mid 60s and concrete brutalism. The architect Max Clendinning was joined by the structural engineer Hugh Tottenham of the Timber Development Association whose timber shell roof and this laminated timber façade make it so distinctive.  Rather than reverse the time in ones head from the reflection, turn around and see

the clock tower and the correct time.

Express Sprinter waiting at Oxford Road

The curved wooden beams inside the station support the canopy and there have been later additions of waiting shelters in the same theme

who occupants may be reflecting on when their train might arrive. 

To see what the clock tower is attached to one must walk away from the station and see it soaring above what was the Refuge Assurance Building built by Alfred Waterhouse in the 1890s and then later in 1910-12 a 217 ft (66m) clock tower and extension along Oxford Road was built by his son John. Refuge Assurance occupied the building for nearly a century but today it is the Palace Hotel a short walk from the ornate

entrance (still with the Refuge name on the stonework), to the railway station or vice-versa.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet sojourning this week at R