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Buildings where the building is the reason to go: the inside-out, the Art Deco, the concrete, and the ones that make no sense at all until somebody explains them.
The largest enclosed space in the world in 1868, with a Gothic hotel bolted across the front of it.
TransportVictorian & EdwardianYou can go insideFree
Two buildings by two men who were not collaborating. William Barlow's train shed of 1868 is the engineering: a single span of 240 feet on wrought-iron ribs, 100 feet high and unsupported down the middle, which made it the largest enclosed space anywhere when it opened - the width was set by the beer barrels from Burton stacked in the undercroft below. George Gilbert Scott then won the competition for the Midland Grand Hotel and put a red-brick Gothic palace across the front, hiding the shed completely from the road. British Rail proposed demolishing the lot in the 1960s. The campaign led by the Victorian Society and John Betjeman got it protected ten days before the bulldozers.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.