Columns and supporting brackets for the platform canopies from Dorking North station, cast iron, Glasgow, 1867, made by Walter Macfarlane & Co., designed by Charles H. Driver.

Pair of cast iron columns and supporting brackets for the platform canopies from Dorking railway station. The tubular column, a hollow core casting, resting on a plain collar, the flared base with fluted decoration, reducing above between two single rows of half round, beaded moulding, surmounted by a short fluted collar and a plain shaft supporting an octagonal capital with a half round beaded moulding at the base, curved leaf decoration surmounted by a saw tooth moulding. The column supports a double `L' shaped bracket with a fluted central column arising from an octagonal base, braced by two outwardly curved arched supports decorated with scroll work and naturalistic leaves. The column is painted a dark red with details picked out in cream. The brackets are coloured cream.

Gift of Biwater Shellabear Ltd.

Dorking in Surrey is served by three railway stations: Dorking West which opened in 1849 on the North Downs Line, part of South Eastern Railway which linked Reading, Guildford and Redhill, Dorking Deepdene, again on the North Downs Line which opened shortly afterwards in 1851 and finally, Dorking North, now simply known as Dorking Station on the Leatherhead to Horsham section of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway which opened in 1867 and finally linked Dorking directly to London.

Charles H. Driver, the architect for Dorking North station began his architectural training on the railways taking up a position as a consulting architect in 1852 with the engineering partnership of Liddell and Gordon, assisting them in the design of stations on the Leicester to Hitchin Railway, built form 1853 to 1857 by the Midland Railway. From 1860 to 1863 he worked alongside Robert Jacob Hood (1822-1900) engineer to the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway. For the first time in the history of the railway, these small country stations were developed from a standardised model, the result being almost identical stations in an eclectic style mixing Norman and medieval Venetian elements and including elaborate ornamental cast iron platform canopies. Similar columns designed by Driver to those used at Dorking can be found on Battersea Park Station (1867) and supporting the exterior canopy to Leatherhead Station (1867). Driver developed his ornament in cast iron with the Glasgow iron founder, Walter Macfarlane, in effect providing Macfarlane with a distinctive signature style that the company would go on to apply to thousands of different castings in the decades that followed.

In 1980, the Museum was alerted to fact via the Sussex Archeological Society, Industrial Architectural Group that the Victorian station was being demolished so that a development profitable to British Rail and incorporating a new station can be carried out. The original station has been replaced by an undistinguished office block, with the new station incorporated beneath.

Charles H. Driver, FRIBA, was a significant British architect of the Victorian era with a reputation for the pioneering use of ornamental ironwork for which he was seen as a leading authority. He was also an expert in its casting and manufacture.

M.69 A to F-1984