Kettering Railway Station Canopy, Kettering, Northamptonshire. Historic Building Recording (OASIS ID: alanbaxt2-362969)

Recording of the canopies at Kettering Railway Station was undertaken by Alan Baxter Ltd in July 2019. The level 3 investigation was commissioned by Network Rail following the approval of listed building consent for alterations to the platform canopies, including the replacement of the trackside brackets on platforms 2-4, reinstatement of historic details and the installation of new roof coverings. The gutter of the platform 1 canopy will also be altered. Kettering Station opened in 1857 as part of the Midland Railway's Leicester to Hitchin Line, now the main line to St Pancras. It was designed by Charles Henry Driver in a simplified Gothic style. The site comprises the four platform canopies at Kettering Railway Station. The canopy on platform 1 dates to 1895-98 when the original 1857 station building and attached canopy were demolished and replaced. It comprises an early steel, hipped, ridge-and-furrow canopy of a type then standard on the Midland Railway. The canopies on platforms 2, 3 and 4 date from 1879 when the line through Kettering Station was quadrupled. They are constructed of multiple iron casting, with elaborate pierced foliate brackets. Although they are effectively reproductions of Driver's original 1857 canopies (as surviving today at platform 1 at Wellingborough Station) there are numerous detailed differences in their construction, which are apparent by comparing them with the surviving 1857 canopy at Wellingborough Station. After the 1960s, the canopies on platforms 2 and 4 were trimmed. On all three platforms, the original glass glazing was replaced with corrugated polycarbonate sheets in the 1970s.