W. N. Ashbee

William Neville Ashbee (1852 – 30 April 1919) was a railway architect, notable for stations on the Great Eastern Railway, including the London terminus at Liverpool Street Station.

Ashbee was articled as an architect to Alfred Maberley, the Diocesan Surveyor for Gloucester (the place of his birth). He became an associate in 1881 and a fellow in 1890 of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

In 1874 he joined the engineering firm of Edward Wilson & Co working on the construction of Liverpool Street Station and, while with the firm, designed most of the new Great Eastern Railway stations built in that period, working with John Wilson as engineer. In 1883 Wilson resigned from the firm to join the GER as chief engineer and Ashbee followed him.

Ashbee was appointed as the head of the architectural department of the GER in 1883, a position he held until 1916. His major early work after appointment was the elaborate Norwich Thorpe station, built in 1884-6 in a "Free Renaissance" style. He later worked with John Wilson as the architect for the 1894 expansion of Liverpool Street Station, built in neo Tudor style.

Following his appointment to the GER in 1883 Ashbee started to adopt the "Domestic Revival" style of architecture which had been used by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway on its new lines in Sussex in the early 1880s. His earliest work in this style was the Up Side at Ingatestone railway station in 1884/5, followed by Wivenhoe and Frinton stations in 1886 and 1888.

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