About SideTracked Caches
This cache belongs to the SideTracked series. It is not designed to take you to a magical place with a breath taking view. It's a distraction for the weary traveller, but anyone else can go and find it too. More Information can be found on the SideTracked Series website at www.sidetrackedseries.info
The station was opened by the Ipswich & Bury Railway in 1846, with red brick main buildings in a flamboyant Jacobean manner by Frederick Barnes. The station buildings were listed in 1972 and restored in 1987. Historic England describes the station buildings thus:
"Red brick with gault brick dressings under roofs clad in machine tiles. 1-3 storeys on high basements. Composition, in Jacobean style, is symmetrical, comprising a central one storey and attic block linked by single-storey ranges to taller 2-3 storey side blocks. Central block with Dutch gables to west, north and south, the west one facing the entrance and with an attic window. Windows generally are ovolo-moulded cross casements, cornices are saw-toothed. 2 square one-storey pavilions flank main entrance right and left. Recessed linking blocks had retaining walls with taller central doorways enclosing forecourt, but this remains now only to south side. Main outer blocks with cross casements, Dutch gables to all faces (north return of north block with twin shaped gables), and frontal (west) polygonal towers with doors at the bases and pierced parapets at the top. Gabled roofs carry romantically-placed 2- and 3-flued stacks. Platform canopies supported on square section welded steel piers of late C20. The piers rise to timber braces within which are cast-iron scrolled brackets. Inner face of main west range with 4 arches right and left of central entrance to booking hall."
Nicklaus Pevsner described it as "an elaborate piece of Elizabethan architecture by Frederick J Barnes, 1849. Red and yellow brick, symmetrical, with shaped gables and angle towers."
Text from Wikipedia.