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Facts and Events
Architect
Ipswich Station Walk, by Michael Anderton
Background
The Eastern Union Railway first came to Suffolk in the first half of the 19th century when goods traffic from London to Ipswich commenced on the 1st June 1846. The official opening of the line for passenger traffic took place on the 11th June 1846 to the original station at Croft Street. The Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds Railway Company's Engineer Peter Bruff constructed the 360 yard long tunnel through Stoke Hill and so began the next stage of the railway westwards that opened on the 7th December 1846. The new station on the present day site was designed by Sancton Wood and opened on 1st July 1860.
Formerly Kingsbridge Station and another of Dublin's four railway termini, Heuston Station was commissioned in 1846 from Sancton Wood, an English architect. Easily the most impressive of Dublin's stations, Heuston is based on the design of an Italian palazzo. A central block of nine bays is used to mask the train shed designed by Sir John McNeill. This block has projecting corinthian columns, balustrades and an attic storey - all decorated with carved swags and urns. To either side of this main block are domed campaniles. To the south is the main entrance block built along the side of the railway shed.
GRESHAM STREET
42,040 sq.m of office floorspace. Previousbanqueting facilities at basement level are replaced by a public restaurant primarily at ground level. On the junction with King Street and immediately opposite the ceremonial entranceto Guildhall stands 42-44 Gresham Street, a grade II listed building built in 1850 by Sancton Wood. The building was vacated in 1998 and the opportunity was taken to bring the building up to present day office standards by rationalising the floorspace, to provide 2,473sq.m of office space
The tunnel opened on 26th. November 1846 with a trial train to Bury St.Edmunds, and fully opened to passengers 7th. December1846. Ipswich Station on its present site was opened in1860 and was designed by Sancton Wood 1816-1866.
CAMBRIDGE
Consisting of a double series of arcades', one side enclosing the trains on the one and only platform, the other road carriages; Sancton Wood's main block survives today although in extended form. Within four months of the opening on 30 July 1845, local interests were pressing for a more central station or enlargement of the existing one and the provision of a branch to the town centre; the ECR was in fact prepared to include this last concept in an 1847 bill until the university objected to the disturbance of its calm.
Inchicore Railway Works is the largest engineering complex of its kind in the State. It is a landmark, identifiable by rail passengers with its unique turreted facade, the work of Sancton Wood who also designed Hueston (formerly Kingsbridge) Station as the terminus for the Great Southern & Western Railway.
Portarlington Station
The railway came to Portarlington on June 28th 1847, when the Great Southern and Western Railway Co. opened the second section of its main line which was eventually to reach Cork. The first section, from Kingsbridge Station, to Kildare had opened on August 4 1846, together with the branch to Carlow. Work on the line south from Cherryville Junction had begun in 1845 and in February 1847 the company architect, Sancton Wood had plans ready for the station at Portarlington and Maryborough (now Portlaoise). The board of directors approved Wood’s plans and tenders were called for the work. Matthew Lynch was the successful tendered for Portarlington at a price of £4381-19-7. The railway builders made better progress than Matthew Lynch and on June 11 the engineer was instructed to have a temporary sleeper platform erected at a cost of £5, as well as a wooden shed for the passengers at £20. In 1925 the G S station in Athlone closed, and all trains used the former Midland great Western station. With the exception of the war years, and the coal shortage of 1947 these services continued until 1973, when C.I.E. diverted Galway and Westport line trains to run through Portarlington, giving much improved connections from the south of the country to the west.
References
- ↑ England. National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations),1858 onwards. (Ancestry.com).
The Will of Sancton Wood late of Putney-hill Putney in the County of Surrey, Architect and Surveyor, who died 18 April 1886 at 11 Putney-hill was proved at the Principal Registry by Edward Statter Carr of 325 High-Holborn in the County of Middlesex, Solicitor, Edwin Richard Hewitt of 182 Blackfriars-road in the County of Surrey, Architect and Surveyor, and William Henry White of 1 Finsbury-square in the City of London Land Agent and Surveyor, the Executors.
- Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
[1].
SANCTON WOOD was born at Hackney, in the year 1815. His father, Mr. John Wood, who was a member of an old and prosperous Cumberland family, had, when a young man, quitted his native county to enter into business in London as a 'Manchester Merchant;' from thence he married a Miss Harriet Russell, niece of the eminent painter, Mr. Richard Smirke, R.A.
Six children were born of this marriage, the youngest child and only son taking his distinctive Christian name from an uncle, Mr. Philip Sancton, a successful London Merchant, who had married his father’s sister.
As a boy, Sancton Wood does not appear to have received any great educational advantages so far as school life was concerned; he was first placed by his father at a small private school in Devonshire, and was afterwards transferred to a school in Birmingham presided over by Mr. T. R. Hill, the father of Sir Rowland Hill, C.B. ...
Having manifested a taste for drawing, he was, through his mother’s influence, admitted into the office of his cousin, Sir Robert Smirke, RA., who was then one of the leading London architects ; from this office he was transferred to that of Mr. Sydney Smirke, R.A., who succeeded to his brother’s practice. He remained with Mr. Sydney Smirke for several years after the expiration of his articles, and was engaged upon the drawings of many important works ; amongst others may be mentioned the sketches of the designs for rebuilding the Houses of Parliament, which Sir Robert Smirke had prepared for Sir Robert Peel’s government before the House of Commons decided in favour of an open competition.
Whilst with Mr. Smirke, Sancton Wood became a student in the Antique School at the Royal Academy; subsequently he travelled on the Continent, spending considerable time in Spain and Portugal, collecting numerous drawings of the most important buildings he had seen, and making many sketches, all of which possess artistic merit...
In 1838 he was engaged by Mr. John Braithwaite, M. Inst. C.E., to design the buildings for the Eastern Counties Railway, including the old terminus at Shoreditch; his designs for the latter, however, were considerably modified, owing to financial difficulties. The first premium of S100 was awarded to him for his design for the station at Ipswich, and several of the stations on the Eastern Union Railway were designed by him for Mr. Peter Bruff, M. Inst. C.E. In 1845 his design for the terminal station in Dublin of the Great Southern and Western Railway was accepted in a competition in which sixty-five competitors were engaged, and this building, and nearly all the intermediate stations from Dublin to Cork, were erected from his designs and under his superintendence. He was also architect to the Limerick Junction line, and to the Grand Racing Stand at the Curragh.
Mr. Charles Liddell engaged his services in the design and superintendence of several stations on two branches of the Midland and North Western Railways. In 1846 Mr. Wood obtained a premium of £100 for his design for the Blackburn Railway Station.
His work, however, was by no means confined to railway architecture ; the streets and terraces known as Upper Hyde Park Gardens were laid out by him for Messrs. J. and C. Rigby, who built all the houses on the estate from his designs and specifications. He was also architect to the block of offices at the southwest corner of King Street and Gresham Street. His practice was now of a very extensive character, and it would be tedious to mention all the numerous buildings erected from his designs in London and in the provinces; they comprise, churches, schools, dwelling-houses, warehouses, offices, stables, and buildings of almost every class, many of them of considerable importance and excellence of design. In addition to the above works, Mr. Sancton Wood was surveyor to several building estates in different parts of London and the suburbs, amongst the most successful of which was the Lime Grove Estate, Putney ; this estate was laid out by him and entirely covered under his superintendence, several houses upon it being built from his own designs.
Mr. Wood formerly held the appointment of District Surveyor of Putney and Roehampton, and for the last twenty-four years was District Surveyor of St. Luke’s, Chelsea. In 1861, he was a candidate for the office of Superintending Architect to the Metropolitan Board of Works, and was only defeated by Mr. George Vulliamy by three votes.
His long and varied experience, coupled with his reliable judgment and rapid perception, eminently qualified him for the surveying branch of his profession, and he was very largely occupied with arbitrations, valuations and compensation cases ; in later life his architectural practice was almost relinquished for this more profitable class of work.
Mr. Wood was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, on the Council of which he served in 1850 and 1851, and a Fellow of the Institute of Architects of Ireland; he was also a Member of the Institute of Surveyors. He was elected an Associate of this Institution on the 4th of April 1848, and served on the Council in the Session 1857-58...
For many years he was an active member of the Directorate of the Provident Clerks Assurance Company, in which he took a considerable interest. He was an eminently successful man in most things that he undertook, an able administrator with a clear, sound judgment, and a quick and accurate perception of facts. Although of a somewhat nervous and excitable temperament he was possessed of considerable vigour of mind, and great refinement and delicacy of feeling, and his unimpeachable integrity of character and courtesy of manner won him the respect and esteem of all men who came into contact with him.
He died at his residence at Putney Hill on the 18th of April, 1886, in the seventy-first year of his age, after an illness of two or three days.
- ↑ Non-Conformist Register Dr. William's Library.
Sancton Wood, Nursery Place, Hackney Terrace, par. St. John Hackney, s/o John Wood & Harriot Elizabeth, Daughter of John Russell, Witness Mary Ann Wood, 27 Apr 1814
- A2A
Chelsea Waterworks Company: Corporate Records
Legal papers
FILE - Legal papers - ref. ACC 2558/CH/1/264-276 - date: 1724 - 1937
item: C.W.W. Co and Sancton Wood Esq, copy conveyance of land in Putney, Surrey and associated papers - ref. ACC 2558/CH/1/267 - date: 1855-1856
FILE - Legal papers - ref. ACC 2558/CH/1/301-304 - date: 1854 - 1880
item: C.W.W. Co and Sancton Wood re piece of land at Putney, Surrey - ref. ACC 2558/CH/1/302 - date: 1854-55
FILE - Transfer of mortgage; (i) Thomas Partington Scrivener of 9 Fleet St Chartered accountant; (ii) James Willcox of the Mexfield Dairy Upper Richmond Road Wandsworth Surrey; (iii) George Wood of Gravesend Kent brewer and William George Penman of Gravesend, gent. - ref. D19/1 - date: 20 Jan 1896
[from Scope and Content] Piece of land with messuage stables coach house cow house sheds and other buildings, in Putney, bounded N on London and South Western Richmond Branch Railway, S on Upper Richmond Rd E by land latetely belonging to Sancton Wood let by him to Mr James Clipson, W by land also Sancton Wood. The premises were formerly in occupation of Joseph Willcox and then of James Willcox (the Father) then called Saint John's Dairy
- Called nephew in the Probate record of Philip Sancton, Esq. (d. 26 Jan 1886)
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