Worcester Shrub Hill railway station

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Worcester Shrub Hill
Location
Place	Worcester
Local authority	Worcester
Operations
Station code	WOS
Managed by	Central Trains
Platforms in use
Live departures and station information from National Rail
Annual Passenger Usage
2004/05 **	1.356 million
History
Key dates	Opened 1865
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Worcester Shrub Hill (source)   * 2002/03 Disclaimer  ** 2004/05 Disclaimer
UK Rail Portal

Worcester Shrub Hill railway station is one of two stations serving the city of Worcester in Worcestershire, England. It is managed by Central Trains, and it is also served by First Great Western.

The city's other station, Worcester Foregate Street, is situated in the city centre; Shrub Hill is situated to the east.

[edit] History

The present Shrub Hill station was designed by Edward Wilson and built in 1865. It is a Georgian-style building mainly of engineering brick with stone facings.

On platform 2b is the old ladies’ waiting room which extends onto the platform. It is a cast-iron structure cast at the Vulcan Iron Works at Worcester. This was a subsidiary of the MacKenzie and Holland signal manufacturing company about 200 yards from Worcester Shrub Hill station . The exterior is decorated with classical pilasters and covered with “majolica” ceramic tiles made by Maw and Company of Broseley.

Maw was originally a Worcester company founded in 1850 when they bought the old Chamberlain tile factory. However in 1852 they moved to Broseley to be nearer their source of clay. In the main they made encaustic tiles rather than the “majolica” ceramic tiles used to decorate the Shrub Hill waiting room.

Wojtczak writes that in 1873 there was Ladies’ Waiting Room Attendant called Mrs Dale who earned 10s and that this was the same rate of pay as a Mrs Spencer who was the Office Cleaner.

It is Grade II* listed and English Heritage placed it on the “Buildings At Risk Register” in 2003. The official records record that the waiting room was added c1880. In 2005 the register records “The cast iron frame is in need of structural repair. The front wall is leaning out and currently shored up. Preliminary investigative work has been carried out, but repair works have been delayed due partly to problem of locating specialist contractors." In April 2005 Network Rail applied for listed building planning consent to restore the waiting room to bring it back into use before the end of 2006. The application gave detail of the work to be carried out including restoration of the cast iron work and the sourcing and replacement of the missing ceramic tiles but as at May 2006 no work had commenced and English Heritage reported that the building will be on the 2006 “Buildings At Risk Register” to be published in June 2006.

[edit] Services

Worcester Shrub Hill is served by Central Trains' services from Worcester to Birmingham, either directly to Birmingham New Street via Bromsgrove, or via Kidderminster to Birmingham Snow Hill. First Great Western operate several services a day to London Paddington via the Cotswold Line and Oxford. They also run services to Bristol Temple Meads via Cheltenham and Gloucester. Both companies also run services via Worcester Foregate Street to Great Malvern and Hereford.

[edit] External links

• Train times and station information for Worcester Shrub Hill railway station from National Rail
• Street map and aerial photo of Worcester Shrub Hill railway station from Multimap.com

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Worcester Foregate Street		Central Trains Hereford-Birmingham		Droitwich Spa
Worcester Foregate Street		Central Trains Worcester-Birmingham via Kidderminster		Droitwich Spa
Worcester Foregate Street		First Great Western Cotswold Line		Pershore
Worcester Foregate Street		First Great Western Worcester-Bristol		Ashchurch for Tewkesbury