The space between the double staircase was used for a cascading effect of ornamental plants which confronted passengers as they entered the concourse from the booking hall. Hanging baskets and planters on the concourse itself add to the Kew Gardens effect in this view from c1910. The elegant ridged roof and elaborate ironwork complete this delightful scene. A visitor to the station c1900 commented that this was ‘without a doubt the prettiest station of any large town in this country with its charming beds of flowers, its pendants of floral beauty covering its roof and hanging all over its supporting pillars’. Another visitor opined that it looked more like a garden than a railway station. This photograph surely supports these accolades.

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