User:Jann Leslie

Edwin Henry Horne  Architect  ( 1843 -1915)
Edwin Henry Horne was an English architect working in the Victorian era and specialising in church and railway architecture, He was associated with several of the stations  on the North London Railway between 1865 and 1873. A major project was his design of the large station at Islington and Highbury.

Life and career
He was born at 9 Munster Street, Regent's Park, on April 16th 1843.In 1861,he was articled for five years to the architect George Rowden Burnell. In the years directly following, he was engaged as architect for the North London Railway Company, designing six of the passenger stations,namely Camden Road, Hackney, Bow,Barnsbury,Canonbury,Islington and Highbury. On November 15th, 1875 he was elected an associate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1874, he was chosen from a field of twelve architects to design and supervise the building of St John's Church, Ealing Dean, which was consecrated in 1876. He died on August 22nd 1915 in Church Place Dover and is buried in St Mary's Cemetery.

Architectural Work
He was architect of Islington and Highbury Station, described by John Betjeman ."with its billiard halls,vast booking halls and arcades of shops,all in stock brick with mansard roofs" "London's Historic Railway Stations" John Betjeman pub. John Murray London 1972. The building was completed in 1873.

The following description appeared in "The Illustrated London News" on April 19 that year "the building consists of three wings, one of which is the Cock Tavern; the centre is the railway station and the third part is a block of shops, designed to complete the range.

The architecture is of an Italian character, freely treated; white Suffolk bricks being used for the face and Portland stone and red terracotta for the dressings."

An engraving of the station headed the article.

Damaged by fire during the Blitz in 1940,the mansard roof and the upper storey were lost.Then,on 27 June 1944,a flying bomb hit Highbury Corner, killing 26 people and injuring a further 155. The bomb caused devastating damage to the south wing of the station, the Cock Tavern,eleven houses in Compton Terrace and several other buildings. Although temporary repairs were carried out in the postwar years,Highbury & Islington was never restored to use as a passenger station.

Camden Town Station
Originally opened in December 1870, on the corner of Camden Road and Bonny Street NW1, it was built in Venetian Gothic style, in white Suffolk brick and Portland stone with terracotta dressings.The main entrance has a lunette of circular tracery within a gauged Roman arch repeated in the arches on Bonny Street. although those on Camden Road were disfigured by alterations prior to WW2.The vast interior was enclosed by a mansard roof with iron cresting. The building, which is heritage listed,continues west along Bonny Street with offices and former waiting rooms above goods stores,faced with the same brick with arched windows and stone mouldings. The station was renamed Camden Road in 1950 to avoid confusion with the underground station. It is one of only two nationally listed railway stations (Grade 11) on the North London Line.

Bow Station
The substantial station at Bow was opened on 26 March 1870.The elegant facade in yellow stock brick featured simple round arches.Portland stone was used for the dressings and the two staircases. At road level was a booking hall, waiting and refreshment rooms and on the upper floor was a spacious assembly room cum concert hall designed to seat 1,000 persons.

St John's Church
In 1874,Horne was chosen as architect for St John's Church, Ealing. The church, large enough to seat 1,000 persons, was consecrated two years later on July 15,1876.

The exterior architecture was described in The Annals of Ealing as French Gothic. The interior as striking.

"The proportions are good. The breadth and height are such as to distinguish it from ordinary nineteenth century churches and there are several original features such as the lofty and wide arches connecting the transepts with the nave, the half arches between the aisles and the transepts, which bring the whole into one vast auditorium, the use of the lower part of the tower to form a choir and the spacious and lofty organ chamber."

On the night of November 8th,1920, a fire broke out in St John's Ealing, gutting the interior. Only the bare walls were left standing.The tower and bells crashed down into the chancel. Restorations cost thirty- three thousand pounds. The steeple was never replaced.