We're here at Curzon Street and we're just at the
beginning of refurbishment for this fantastic great one listed
building behind us. Well it's in the top 2% of all buildings in
England because of its historical and architectural
significance designed by Philip Hardwick and basically this was
the northern counterpoint to the famous Euston Arch which
was sadly lost in the 1960s. Well the refurbishments going to
take about a year and then we've got exciting plans, the
ground floor is gonna be a visitor centre and a cafe, so you
can come and talk to us and then the first and second stories
are gonna be flexible office space, so we're going to be
bringing the building back into use for the first time in about
15 years. I think it's really important that we are
preserving this piece of heritage for future generations
this railway station was built in 1838 it survived the second
world war it survived two attempts in the 1970s to have
it demolished, it's now of course protected as grade one
listed and it's fantastic that future generations will come
into this building and see one of the oldest railway stations
in the world refurbed and some of the heritage elements
preserved so that future generations can enjoy it, and
interesting to me that we'll create a square outside of the
station and with the railway station itself and the Woodman
Pub we'll have these two really important heritage elements
sitting alongside the new HS2 station and people will be able
to compare a facility built back in the 19th century with a
brand new station fit for the 21st century. So we're in a
grade one listed building. We've got to be quite
sympathetic to this building. And we've got to make sure that
we understand how the structure's built and what is
actually heritage. So that's a challenge for us as well.
We're gonna be taking the ceilings down. We
know the ceilings have been very much probably part of the
80s renovation. But
then the building is opening a new envelope of issues
that we're finding finding out the bomb hit the building in
the war and finding out that you know that there's been some
structural damage on that it's been repaired quite crudely
over the years but then we also look at it and say oh it's
quite quite interesting the way they did it and then there's
some structural repairs we've got to do and some stone
repairs coming in comes from the original quarry where the
the building was built from and we stop in Derbyshire and then
we'll be doing those repairs as well as the stitch as well and
then the inside of the building basically what we're doing
we're bringing it up just up to todays standards so some
elements have been taken away off site most of the doors have
been taken away off and they're in our workshop in the
Midlands and we got local trades that are doing that for
us, most of the windows we're doing them on site so in the
rooms that we taken off and as the scaffold goes envelopes the
building will take the windows out bring them in to make a
little makeshift workshop within that room and then we'll
make those windows good and then they'll go back so they
won't be transported away from the which again is good for the
environment as well and reduces calm footprint.
I keep telling people to go and watch the the programme
Britain's Biggest Dig and I'll say well that's the station you
know for all my children to say that's where I'm working at the
moment they are very proud to be working on it. So this is
only a small part of the works that have been ongoing at the
Curzon Street site over the last few years as part of the
enabling works contract we've had a huge program of ground
remediation but also archaeological investigation
that's unpicked a huge part of our rail heritage on this site
so we've got all of the other buildings or the remains
thereof that accompanied this building you know this is a
real once in a generation opportunity to actually
refurbish the building to a decent standard get people back
into it for the first time in a long while and then actually
revive it as the architectural jewel it really is as part of
the new emerging scheme here as part of our new station.