Former BR offices which have been turned into hotels

[sh24]

The ca. 1961 office block outside Plymouth station which started life as the Divisional Headquarters was, on a recent-ish call at the station, being converted to student accommodation. Not a hotel, but probably close in practice!

It's actually University offices, and fully open.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Is this what was formerly known as Melbury House / Blandford House? (I’m finding it hard to find specific details online)

Nope. Melbury House/Blandford House was where the BNP Paribas building now stands, with access from both Harewood Avenue and within the station.

 

[Merle Haggard]

It's actually University offices, and fully open.

Sorry for duff-gen. When it was being rebuilt I struck up a conversation with a member of station staff about t being a one-time B.R. office block and that's what they thought at the time.

Nope. Melbury House/Blandford House was where the BNP Paribas building now stands, with access from both Harewood Avenue and within the station.

I can't recollect well, but I thought that they were two different blocks. Blandford House was the home of the T.O.P.S. computer and Melbury became Inland Waterways H.Q. - although I might have got the two confused.

 

[CyrusWuff]

I can't recollect well, but I thought that they were two different blocks. Blandford House was the home of the T.O.P.S. computer and Melbury became Inland Waterways H.Q. - although I might have got the two confused.

A bit of Googling suggests they were the same building but it got divided in two at some point.

 

[Merle Haggard]

A bit of Googling suggests they were the same building but it got divided in two at some point.

Thanks, that figures with Inland Waterways Board moving in. Didn't know that the T.O.P.S. computer had moved out, presumably a replacement mainframe somewhere else.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Sep 2024 ==

Melton House, Clarendon Road, Watford is now a hotel, doing a roaring trade with visitors to Harry Potter. It was built in the early 1960’s as a BR office block.

Great Northern House, 79-81 Euston Road, London was built in the mid to late 1950’s as an office block, leased to BR and was the HQ for, firstly, the Great Northern Line of ER, then the Divisional HQ for the KX Division. It eventually became a youth hostel and is now a cheap youth orientated hotel.

That's interesting about Melton House. When RfD moved in, each floor was a single open plan office (apart from lavatories of course). It was also allegedly built to have air-conditioning but this was never fitted although the feature of windows not opening (actually, just a little at the bottom) was retained - so the local provider of hired portable air conditioning and a steady income in the summer. Must have been a challenge to make it into individual rooms. Hope the canteen is better than then .

Finally have spoken to my mate who worked there, it was indeed Divisional staff at G.N. House and the staff moved to G.M. York or A.M. Kings Cross as part of 'two-tier'. Sorry, I was sure that two-tier was long before '84. As an aside, he remembers a controller who had moved from Knebworth, wonder where Knebworth Control was geographically. There was also a Motor-rail office there (GN Hse) at the time.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Is this what was formerly known as Melbury House / Blandford House? (I’m finding it hard to find specific details online)

No, across the road

 

[Clarence Yard]

That's interesting about Melton House. When RfD moved in, each floor was a single open plan office (apart from lavatories of course). It was also allegedly built to have air-conditioning but this was never fitted although the feature of windows not opening (actually, just a little at the bottom) was retained - so the local provider of hired portable air conditioning and a steady income in the summer. Must have been a challenge to make it into individual rooms. Hope the canteen is better than then .

Finally have spoken to my mate who worked there, it was indeed Divisional staff at G.N. House and the staff moved to G.M. York or A.M. Kings Cross as part of 'two-tier'. Sorry, I was sure that two-tier was long before '84. As an aside, he remembers a controller who had moved from Knebworth, wonder where Knebworth Control was geographically. There was also a Motor-rail office there (GN Hse) at the time.

I stay at Melton House (a.k.a. Holiday Inn, Watford Junction) when Mrs CY and I do the internationals at Wembley, much, much cheaper than staying in London and although it is a walk to the Met, you beat the crowds on the trains going via London. The rooms are nice, as is the breakfast. The police station over the road in Shady Lane (yes, really!) is now closed so the Met police horses that get drafted in for Watford home matches presumably now get tethered somewhere else than the Melton House (Holiday Inn) car park!

G.N.House did indeed have a Motorail office, on the right as you went in and before you went up a short flight of steps to the lift landing. Control was on the left, on the other side of the main entrance. Knebworth control was a two storey building on the downside of Knebworth Station, right by the down slow. G.N.House was and still is a very odd building as it bends round the pub and is only four storeys high facing Judd and Bidborough Streets. In BR days it had a “hollow middle” with a near square arrangement, the pub stopping a full square of corridors on each floor. It (like many properties in London) was owned by a livery company, the Worshipful Company of Skinners in this case, and leased to BR.

A word about the Grove and some earlier comments. The Craddock’s didn’t live at the main house - they lived at the dower house on Grove Mill Lane, right on the corner opposite the Mill, just as the road bends towards Whippendell Woods. They weren’t terribly popular in the local community. The Grove was used as offices and a training facility from WW2 right up to when Melton House opened in 1962 - around 300 passenger accounts staff working in huts in the grounds. It was then converted into a fully fledged training facility.

 

[och aye]

Slightly cheating a bit, but the Apex Hotel in Waterloo Place was originally built as the Waterloo Hotel in 1819 (apparently Charles Dickens was a guest at the hotel) before being bought by the North British Railway when the hotel closed down in 1898. It remained as their headquarters until it became part of LNER in 1923, but remained as the Scottish HQ. It remained as offices during the British Rail era until 1971. Trainspotting writer, Irvine Welsh apparently worked in the building when it was Council offices in the 1980s.

Source:

Edinburgh Apex Hotel’s forgotten history as railway nerve centre commemorated​

Historic Edinburgh hotel’s forgotten history as a railway nerve centre finally commemorated

Key transport role of Waterloo Place building added following its link to Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh

www.scotsman.com

A forgotten chapter in the history of Edinburgh's first major purpose-built hotel when it became the nerve centre of the capital's railways has been commemorated.

Opened as the Waterloo Hotel in 1819 on a newly-built entry road to the city centre just east of Princes Street, the imposing building is far less well known as the past headquarters of several railway companies, chosen because of its proximity to Waverley Station.

The site's past fame has rested on links to Charles Dickens, who is believed to have worked on two novels while a hotel guest in 1861, and Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, who worked in the city council’s housing department when it was based there in the 1980s.