Was this building in Newport built by the railway?

[Jim Martin]

Finding myself in Newport (the South Wales one), I walked past this building, which backs onto the railway at the eastern end of the station.

Based on its location and general appearance,  I was wondering if it was a railway-built structure and, if so, what it was originally built for. Can anyone tell me, please?

 

Jim

[Stretch37266]

That was the main station building and entrance,think it was built about 1930. The upstairs of the 2 storey red building to the right was the Newport traincrew depot,whilst the downstairs had the Tops office,roster clerks,supervisor and stores.

[Rivercider]

This is the other side of the building looking east.

 

37247 and 37274 pass with an empty iron ore set from Llanwern to Port Talbot, 15/7/80

 

And looking west towards Cardiff there is empty stock in platform 1, 37185 has arrived with empty stock and will run round to work the 17.05 to Swansea. Note the headcode has been wound round to match the loco number, 10/9/79

 

 

cheers

Edited April 3, 2023 by Rivercider
added photo

[br2975]

Erected by the G.W.R. in 1928.

.

There is an elevation drawing in Adrian Vaughan's opus, p.94.

[melmerby]

13 minutes ago, br2975 said:

Erected by the G.W.R. in 1928.

.

There is an elevation drawing in Adrian Vaughan's opus, p.94.

I notice he states the elevation is too cluttered now to photograph.

Looks OK now.

In use with the local Council.

[Michael Hodgson]

It used to be called High Street Station although the suffix was dropped as redundant because of the closure of the other stations in town, yet well into the 1970s the 999  cards in the call boxes on the island platform still gave the locations as "GWR High Street Station".  It's not even on the High Street! The road you see in front of it is called Queensway.

[Jim Martin]

Thank you all very much. I think the thing that threw me a bit was the height of the building. It has a GWR-ish look to it, but I can't think of many stations that run to five storeys.

 

Jim

[melmerby]

54 minutes ago, Jim Martin said:

Thank you all very much. I think the thing that threw me a bit was the height of the building. It has a GWR-ish look to it, but I can't think of many stations that run to five storeys.

 

Jim

But it wasn't just a station, most of it appeared to be offices.

Paddington also has some tall buildings (Complete with the company name still on them)

https://goo.gl/maps/g4MqqhA245k8awCx5

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It used to be called High Street Station although the suffix was dropped as redundant because of the closure of the other stations in town, yet well into the 1970s the 999  cards in the call boxes on the island platform still gave the locations as "GWR High Street Station".  It's not even on the High Street! The road you see in front of it is called Queensway.

The way it was for many years - come out of the front door, walk a few yards down what used to be  Station Approach, and you were in the High Street.  literally a couple of minutes minutes walk from the booking hall entrance.  Quensway is a modern road of relatively revcent constriction occupying the space once occupied by High Street Goods and various other demolished (non-railway) buildings.

 

The building also housed various District Managers' offices prior to the amalgamation of the Districts to form the Cardiff Division.  The GWR's mainline management organisation was centred on Newport and Swansea although the District Motive Power/Loco Supts were based on Newport and Neath. Organisationally Cardiff had little to do with the management of the SWML being concerned primarily with teh valleys and based on the old TVR offices at Cardiff Queen Street.  Cardiff only became the managerial centre for teh whole of South Wales when the Districts were abolished in the 1960s ab nd thinsg were cenralsed, as far as speace allowed into a new building outside Cardiff General station.

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Jim Martin said:

Thank you all very much. I think the thing that threw me a bit was the height of the building. It has a GWR-ish look to it, but I can't think of many stations that run to five storeys.

 

Jim

Newport in  the 1930s was still an important port with a lot of coal traffic.  Llanwern steelworks wasn't built until BR days, but other smaller steelworks in the town would have been generating significant traffic before that.  Before the use of computers, accounts were recorded in hand-written ledgers, invoices had to be produced and payments processed.  Somebody had to keep track of rolling stock and get it all back to where it was needed.  Passenger ticketing was still manual, and all the employees in the area had to be paid based on their hours worked.  So there would have been masses of paperwork which all had to be dealt with clerically, yes the company would have needed a big office.  If they didn't do the work in Newport they would have had to do it in even bigger offices in somewhere like Cardiff, which would have had plenty of work from those valleys.

[The Stationmaster]

56 minutes ago, melmerby said:

But it wasn't just a station, most of it appeared to be offices.

Paddington also has some tall buildings (Complete with the company name still on them)

https://goo.gl/maps/g4MqqhA245k8awCx5

That was  just a small part of the GWR offices at Paddington and was at one time the London Division HQ offices pls one or two floors occupied by some RHQW Depts, including teh Chief Casjier at one time.  

 

The main office block, the General Offices,  stretched almsot the whole length of Eastbourne Terrace from the back of the GW Hotel right back almost to Bishops Bridge Road and mostly still extant although the Crossrail changes now obscure the view of part of it inc;luding the gap wherea bomb destroyed part of it in WWII.,  But the Chief Good Manager was located in the large office building at Paddington Goods at the further end of Bishops Bridge on the opposite side of the railway (that building is long demolished).  Plus there was another building - still extant - roughly opposite the end of Eastbourne Terrace and above the g former Down Parcels Office/Platform 1A - that too still has a GWR badge on top.  The far end of that buildng on its railway frontage extends, still, all the way to Westbourne Bridge.  I don't know which Depts were in there but very importantly the HQ staff Dining Club was on one of the higher floors providing excellent meals at very reasonable prices at one time.