Documents

There are no additional online documents for this record.

Summary

Description

North British Railway, 1894. Single storey, rectangular-plan station waiting room with adjoining observation tower signal box, Type 6b.

Rendered brick with banded dressings. Recessed round-arched door to centre. Butressing at corner angles. Projecting eaves with exposed timber brackets. Grey slate with terracotta ridge tiles. Coped end stacks with clay cans. Shouldered chimney projection to N gable end.

Linking section to S joining waiting room to tall, 2-stage, square-plan signal box tower. Pyramidal capped roof with timber bracketed eaves and slate roof. Continuous glazing to upper stage. Single storey, half-piended outshot to S with half-timbered infill to E and projecting wallhead stack breaking eaves to S.

Timber windows to signal box with glazing pattern: 2-pane to lower section; 6-pane to upper section.

Statement of Special Interest

Corrour is an unusual survival of a station on the public rail network originally built by North British Railway to serve a private estate. It is the most remote operational train station in the UK and also the highest at over 1300 feet above sea level. The 'estate style' architecture of the waiting room with its polychromatic banded brickwork, doorway, bracketed eaves and end stacks add to its interest as an example of its building type. The building of a private estate road allowing access to Corrour by car was completed by the Forestry Commission in 1972. Previously, the station was only accessible by train.

Signal boxes are a distinctive and increasingly rare building type that make a significant contribution to Scotland's diverse industrial heritage. Of more than 2000 signal boxes built across Scotland by 1948, around 150 currently survive (2013) with all pre-1948 mechanical boxes still in operation on the public network due to become obsolete by 2021. The signal box at Corrour is a non-standard version of the North British Railway's Type 6b, modified to complement the style of the adjacent station waiting room and is therefore also an unusual example of its type. The 6b shares characteristics with the smaller, square-plan Type 6a at many of the island platform stations on the West Highland Line including Rannoch, Upper Tyndrum, Bridge of Orchy and Garelochead (see separate listings).

Sir John Stirling Maxwell, Tory MP, Chairman of the Forestry Commission and a founder member of the National Trust for Scotland, bought Corrour in 1891 to operate it primarily as a hunting estate. The West Highland Railway Line opened in 1894 and Corrour Station was built the same year to serve the sporting estate. Permission for the West Highland Railway Company to run the line through the estate is understood to have been on the condition that a station be built at Corrour. It is of the island platform type with the up and down lines running either side and an additional siding to the east. Passenger trains have used the down platform only since 1985. The station featured in the film adaptation of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.

Listed as part of Scottish Signal Box Review (2012-13).

References

Bibliography

About Listed Buildings

Historic Environment Scotland is responsible for designating sites and places at the national level. These designations are Scheduled monuments, Listed buildings, Inventory of gardens and designed landscapes and Inventory of historic battlefields.

We make recommendations to the Scottish Government about historic marine protected areas, and the Scottish Ministers decide whether to designate.

Listing is the process that identifies, designates and provides statutory protection for buildings of special architectural or historic interest as set out in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997.

We list buildings which are found to be of special architectural or historic interest using the selection guidance published in Designation Policy and Selection Guidance (2019)

Listed building records provide an indication of the special architectural or historic interest of the listed building which has been identified by its statutory address. The description and additional information provided are supplementary and have no legal weight.

These records are not definitive historical accounts or a complete description of the building(s). If part of a building is not described it does not mean it is not listed. The format of the listed building record has changed over time. Earlier records may be brief and some information will not have been recorded.

The legal part of the listing is the address/name of site which is known as the statutory address. Other than the name or address of a listed building, further details are provided for information purposes only. Historic Environment Scotland does not accept any liability for any loss or damage suffered as a consequence of inaccuracies in the information provided. Addresses and building names may have changed since the date of listing. Even if a number or name is missing from a listing address it will still be listed. Listing covers both the exterior and the interior and any object or structure fixed to the building. Listing also applies to buildings or structures not physically attached but which are part of the curtilage (or land) of the listed building as long as they were erected before 1 July 1948.

While Historic Environment Scotland is responsible for designating listed buildings, the planning authority is responsible for determining what is covered by the listing, including what is listed through curtilage. However, for listed buildings designated or for listings amended from 1 October 2015, legal exclusions to the listing may apply.

If part of a building is not listed, it will say that it is excluded in the statutory address and in the statement of special interest in the listed building record. The statement will use the word 'excluding' and quote the relevant section of the 1997 Act. Some earlier listed building records may use the word 'excluding', but if the Act is not quoted, the record has not been revised to reflect subsequent legislation.

Listed building consent is required for changes to a listed building which affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest. The relevant planning authority is the point of contact for applications for listed building consent.

Find out more about listing and our other designations at www.historicenvironment.scot/advice-and-support. You can contact us on 0131 668 8914 or at designations@hes.scot.