Photograph above:
(Left) Statue of the man himself Isambard Kingdom Brunel at his station. (Right) The beautiful clock on the west side of the terminal.
Photograph Copyright: Digital Expression UK (2021)
HISTORY:
The British Rail station is officially named London Paddington, a name commonly used outside London but rarely by Londoners, who call it just Paddington, as on the London Underground map. This same practice applies to all the London mainline rail termini, except London Bridge. Parts of the station, including the main train shed, date from 1854, when it was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as the London terminus for the Great Western Railway (GWR). It is one of eleven stations in London managed by Network Rail.
The GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (GWR)
After several false starts, Brunel announced the construction of a railway from Bristol to London on 30 July 1833. This became the GWR, and he intended it to be the best railway in the country. The GWR had originally planned to terminate
London services at Euston as this allowed them to use part of the London and Birmingham Railway’s track into the station, which would have been cost effective. This received government approval in 1835, but was rejected as a long-
term solution by Brunel as he was concerned it would also allow Liverpool to compete as a port with Bristol if the railway from Birmingham was extended.
The first station was a temporary terminus for the GWR on the west side of Bishop’s Bridge Road, opened on 4 June 1838. The first GWR service from London to Taplow, near Maidenhead, ran from Paddington in 1838. After the main station opened, this became the site of the goods depot. Brunel did not consider that anything less than a grand terminus dedicated to the GWR would be acceptable, and consequently this was approved in February 1853.
The main station between Bishop’s Bridge Road and Praed Street was designed by Brunel, who was enthusiastic at the idea of being able to design a railway station himself, although much of the architectural detailing was by his associate
Matthew Digby Wyatt. He took inspiration from Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace
and the München Hauptbahnhof. The glazed roof is supported by wrought iron arches in three spans, respectively spanning 68 feet (21 m), 102 feet (31 m) and 70 feet (21 m). The roof is 699 feet (210 m) long, and the original roof spans had two transepts connecting the three spans. It is commonly believed that these were provided by Brunel to accommodate traversers to carry coaches between the tracks within the station. However recent research, using early documents and photographs, does not seem to support this belief, and their actual purpose is unknown. The original station used four platforms, 27-foot (8.2 m)-wide and 24-foot-6-inch (7.47 m)-wide departure platforms, a 21-foot (6.4 m) arrival platform, and a 47-foot (14 m) combined arrival platform and cab road.
A series of nineteen turn-plates were sited beyond the ends of the platforms for horse and coach traffic.
The first GWR service from the new station departed on 16 January 1854, though the roof had not been finished at this point and there were no arrivals. It was formally opened on 29 May, and the older temporary station was demolished the following year.
The Great Western Hotel was built on Praed Street in front of the station from 1851 to 1854 by architect Philip Charles Hardwick, son of Philip Hardwick (designer of the Euston Arch) in a classical and French-chateau design. It opened on 9 June 1854, and had 103 bedrooms and 15 sitting rooms. Each corner contained a tower containing two additional floors beyond the five storeys of the main block. It was originally run by a consortium of GWR shareholders and staff, before the company took over operations completely in 1896. The station was substantially enlarged in 1906–1915 and a fourth span of 109 feet (33 m) was added on the north side, parallel to the others. The new span was built in a similar style to the original three spans, but the detailing is different and it has no transepts. The area between the rear of the hotel and the concourse is called the Lawn. It was originally unroofed and occupied by sidings, but was later built up to form part of the
station’s first concourse.
Paddington’s capacity was doubled to four tracks in the 1870s. The quadrupling was completed to Westbourne Park on 30 October 1871, Slough in June 1879 and Maidenhead in September 1884. An additional platform (later to become No. 9) opened in June 1878, while two new departure platforms (later Nos. 4 and 5) were added in 1885. One of the lines between what is now platform 5 and 7 was removed, in order that the latter could be moved to a more southerly position. Aside from the June 1878 work, Brunel’s original roof structure remained untouched throughout the improvements.
The GWR began experimenting with the electric lighting in 1880, leading to Paddington being decorated with Christmas lights that year. Although the system was unreliable, it spurred the GWR on to a more ambitious lighting scheme in 1886, in which a 145V AC supply could light the terminus, office, goods yard and Royal Oak and Westbourne Park stations. It was praised for its scale and showing that electricity could compete with gas lighting on the same scale.
Paddington became an important milk depot towards the end of the 19th century. A milk dock was built 1881, and by the 20th century over 3,000 churns were being handled at the station every day. Other goods such as meat, fish, horses and flowers were also transported through Paddington. Passenger traffic continued to improve as well. In March 1906, the goods depot at Westbourne Park was moved to Old Oak Common. The main departure platform was extended in 1908 and used for milk and parcels. In 1911, work began to separate light and empty carriage traffic from running trains between Paddington to Old Oak Common, which involved the rebuilding of
Westbourne Park station. The work was halted because of World War I but resumed in 1926, to be completed the
following year. Three new platforms were added; platform 12 in November 1913, platform 11 in December 1915, and platform 10 the following year. The roof was completely reconstructed between 1922 and 1924, replacing Brunel’s original cast-iron columns with steel replicas.
Unlike several other London termini, Paddington saw no damage during World War I. Although Victoria and Charing Cross were the main stations for military movement during the war, Paddington was used for some of this traffic.
On Armistice Day 1922, a memorial to the employees of the GWR who died during the war was unveiled by Viscount Churchill. The bronze memorial, depicting a soldier reading a letter, was sculpted by Charles Sargeant Jagger and stands on platform 1.
