London once came close to having a railway station to rival New York’s Grand Central – but the idea never left the drawing board.
Architectural sketches by Perceval Parsons, drawn up in 1853, reveal a striking proposal for a vast central station by the Thames. His design, now going on public sale for the first time, imagined a grand terminal at Great Scotland Yard, near today’s Embankment, where trains from across the country would converge.
The plans show a sweeping ornamental frontage almost 800ft long, leading into a 300ft hall lined with ticket offices. Parsons envisioned 16 platforms — eight for arrivals, eight for departures — all connected under a vaulted roof. He argued the scheme could be built at “comparatively small expense” on land then occupied by sheds and mudflats.
A Big Idea Cut Short
Parsons pitched the project as the missing link between London’s scattered termini. The concept drew support from Robert Stephenson, son of George Stephenson, the “father of railways.” But the Crimean War drained political appetite for costly ventures, and the idea was quietly dropped.
A royal commission in 1846 had already advised against central London terminals, warning of disruption and expense. That decision pushed the city towards building the world’s first underground railway instead, which opened in 1863.
Rail historian Christian Wolmar says the proposal reflected its era: “In the 1840s, there weren’t many stations near the centre. They were built further out because driving railways into central London was just too expensive.”
Up for Sale
Parsons’ original drawings and a printed prospectus, complete with two fold-out maps, are being offered for £1,450 by Jarndyce antiquarian booksellers at this week’s York book fair. They form part of a catalogue marking the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first passenger line.
Other items in the collection include an 1834 letter from George Stephenson to his son, and one from Isambard Kingdom Brunel written in 1838. There are also early timetables, travel guides and railway company papers from the height of Britain’s steam era.
Ambition of the Railway Age
The 1840s were marked by “railway mania,” when investors rushed to fund bold new lines. Many projects collapsed after the 1847 banking crash, but the boom still reshaped Britain’s transport system.
Parsons’ lost station captures the spirit of that age: a belief that railways could transform cities as well as connect them. His vision for a Thames-side terminal never materialised, but had it been built, London’s skyline — and its transport map — might look very different today.
