Stamford Station Canopy : Round Two
The epic of Stamford Station canopy continues – Network Rail have submitted revised plans for listed building consent. The new design gives a narrower canopy, with the supporting columns set further back from the platform edge. Network Rail say that “this alteration is necessary to achieve required clearances from trains and elements of operational infrastructure”. Electrification perhaps?
The new application was submitted last month, on 16 September, but we only spotted the official notice yesterday, and by coincidence the Stamford Mercury reported on it in today’s issue (9 October); the application is still open to public representations, but the period is not likely to last much longer. The application can be found here, the accompanying images are here and for comparison the images for the original application are here. Or they were, for some reason the image links stop working as soon as my back is turned. No matter, the link to the application itself continues to work, so use that, scroll down to the Additional Documents section and choose Proposed Conceptual Views. The other documents may also be of interest. For the images of the original application click here, scroll down to Additional Documents and choose BDG0321-DRG-A103 Conceptual Views. Here you will also find our paltry list description (under Listing); it dates from the days when list descriptions were typewritten and Victorian buildings were described as Gothic and dismissed in three and a half lines.
In my first post on this topic I wrote that we had ourselves instigated the removal of the canopy by alerting NR to the motion of the canopy when a container train passed, but from their application it seems that this was not so. They explain : The need for the works resulted from an incident in August 2014 in which a stone corbel from the Station Building fell to the platform surface. On investigation it appeared that this was as a result of excessive movement of the canopy beams caused by wind uplift as freight trains passed through the Station. The effect of this on the canopy roof was observed to cause vibrations and movement of the canopy structure. As a result a large section of the corrugated canopy roof structure was removed in order to prevent further damage to the station or risk to users of the building.
Harrumph.
Here is a nice picture, taken by the Guvnor when a mere lad, in 1968, showing the old canopy keeping the rain off a deserted platform. There is an odd ramp-like structure on the roof towards the far end of the canopy (it is more visible if you click on the picture to enlarge it). Has anyone any idea what it might have been for? Other photos show no indication of it from the underside of the canopy.
