Listed Building: Aviemore Railway Station with Island Platform, Footbridge and Fencing (LB257)

Description 1892, restored 1997-98, Law & Dunbar-Nasmith. Range of buildings comprising main offices and waiting rooms on down platform and smaller, but similar range on island platform linked by footbridge, with projecting awnings and separate canopy range. Offices and waiting rooms, down platform. Long single storey painted weather boarded range, contrasting painted window reveals, brick base course. Projecting off-centre square porch with flanking 2-sided canted window all giving onto W approach forecourt and main road. E elevation sheltered by long gabled canopy supported by cast-iron columns with decorative brackets (snowflake-detailed spandrels); wooden barge boards with decorative carved valance, gothic traceried painted arch lights to S gablehead. Large 2- and 3-light windows in both elevations with 3- and 6-pane lower lights and multi-pane lower lights and multi-pane upper lights. Rubble ridge stacks with ashlar copes; slate roofs.Island platform range: single storey 7-bay building, also comprising offices and waiting rooms, also painted weather boarding with contrasting painted window reveals. Projecting canopy encircles building on all sides, supported by similar brackets as down platform but with replacement columns (re-used and painted lengths of rail line). Similar fenestration as down platform range. Rubble ridge and end coped stacks; slate roofs. Decorative cast-iron rainwater downpipes and fixtures.FOOTBRIDGE: Highland Railway Company, cast-iron footbridge with trellis balustrade spans line, linking down and centre island platforms at S.FENCING: picket fences to perimeter and between platforms. Notes Aviemore Station is a rare and outstanding example of late 19th century, timber railway station construction and has no equal in the Highlands. The platform buildings are finely detailed, particularly to trackside elevations and retain numerous original features and elements. The curving timber and cast-iron awning with pierced timber valences equally notable, having been sensitively restored at the end of the 20th century. Opening in 1863, the original station buildings by Inverness and Perth Junction Railway were rebuilt in 1892 by the Highland Railway Company. The cast-iron footbridge by the Highland Railway Company, with trellis balustrade linking the down and centre island platforms, adds to the group value. The timber signal box (see separate listing) at Aviemore is the largest survivor of the archytypal Highland Type 3 box by renowned the signalling manufacturers McKenzie and Holland. Installed not long after the station was rebuilt in 1892, its timber weatherboarded construction is in keeping with the intervisible buildings on the station platform. Change of category from B to A (1998). List description updated as part of Scottish Signal Box Review (2012-13). References John Hume, The Industrial Archaeology Of Scotland Vol Ii (1977) p. 205. Gordon Biddle and O.S. Nock, The Railway Heritage of Britain - 150 Year of of Railway Architecture (1983) p167