Station Road

Station Road was laid out by the Great Western Railway c.1857, to provide access to the new railway station. Until then this was open agricultural land in Rotherfield Greys parish, and both the station and the street remained technically outside the town until 1892, and outside Henley parish until 1905 (see boundaries). The modern street runs from the waterfront through to Reading Road (see map), but as first built it was a gated private road which was closed to the public overnight. The original station building stood much closer to the street than its modern counterpart, and the large curve on the street's north side (now partly occupied by Perpetual House) accommodated the turntable, used for turning steam locomotives at the end of the line. The turntable was moved to the east of the station in 1903.

The borough council took over responsibility for Station Road in 1877, but the street was built up only gradually, as part of a more general suburban development of the area south of Friday Street and along Reading Road. Queen Street (leading to Station Road from Friday Street) was laid out in 1879 and built up piecemeal during the 1880s, while Caxton Terrace (at Station Road's west end) was put up in 1885. The Imperial Hotel was built nearer the station in 1896, its extravagant half-timbering clearly meant to catch the eyes of the thousands of visitors who poured in by train particularly during the Regatta. The flanking Imperial Parade was presumably contemporary, and the nearby Royal Hotel (built in 1869, fronting the riverside) was rebuilt in 1899-1900. A Roman Catholic church just north of the station was built in 1888-9. The street's south side, by contrast, remained largely empty until well into the 20th century, opening onto a field called Station Meadow. Iron railings along that stretch replaced post-and-wire fencing in 1907. The station itself was extended and improved in 1891 and again in 1903--4, when a new booking office was added.   Though the Henley line escaped closure in the 1960s both it and the station were downgraded. The remaining station buildings were demolished in 1975, to be replaced in 1984 by a featureless and much smaller ticket office set a little way south of Station Road. The original station site was replaced by equally featureless offices. The area's increasingly run-down feel was partly reversed in 1993-4 by the building of Perpetual House on the street's north side, between Imperial Parade and the Royal Hotel. Designed by the Broadway Malyan firm as offices for the local investment company Perpetual plc, the building was sympathetically designed to fit in with the local vernacular, combining brick and stone, and featuring pitched roofs and a massive central archway.   Read the censuses for Station Road (see Assets opposite). .