York old railway station

York old railway station is a former railway station in the historic city of York, England. It is a Grade II* listed building.

The first York railway station was a temporary building on Queen Street outside the walls of the city. It was opened in 1839 by George Hudson's York and North Midland Railway and was the terminus of the original trunk route for trains to London, via Derby and Birmingham.

It was succeeded by what is now the old station, built at the junction of Toft Green, Tanner Row and Station Rise inside the city walls by the Y&NM's architect George Townsend Andrews in 1840. It opened on 4 January 1841. Andrews also designed the neo-Tudor arch where the walls were breached to allow trains to access the station.

The station was built in an Italianate style. Its main facade, a symmetrical seventeen-bay three-storey block, faces Tanner Row and Toft Green. The ground floor is of carboniferous limestone and the upper floors are brick with stone dressings. Behind this are the remains of the train-shed, which was of iron construction and was largely demolished in 1965. Beyond the shed, by the city wall, are brick buildings which housed the refreshment rooms and waiting rooms. They originally consisted of only one storey, but an upper storey was added in 1850.

Andrews also designed the hotel across the head of the lines on Station Rise. This was completed in 1853 and was the first hotel to be incorporated into a railway station. After a visit by Queen Victoria, it was named "The Royal Station Hotel".

With the rapid increase in the number of new railway lines during the railway mania and later, this station, originally a terminus, became a part of the route from London to Newcastle and beyond. Through-trains calling at York had to reverse out of the station to continue their journeys, an inconvenience to railway staff and passengers, and a new through station (the present York railway station), outside the city walls, was planned and eventually built, opening in 1877. The tracks into the old station, however, remained in use for a further 88 years as carriage storage space. Meanwhile, the railway buildings and hotel were converted into offices.

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