10208

 

II  

Designated  

24/11/1987  

24/11/1987  

Cliff Railway including Upper & Lower Stations  

 

Ceredigion  

Aberystwyth  

 

 

258435  

282642  

 

At the bottom of the terrace, facing down Queen's Road; the railway rises up Constitution Hill which forms the northern termination of the Promenade.  

Transport  

 

Opened 1 August 1896, cost £60,000 and climbs 400 ft. The only railway of its kind to be built in Wales and the second longest in Britain. Built as one of three enterprises by the Aberystwyth Improvements Company; the hill had become popular with Victorian tourists for taking their 'constitutionals' and the railway was part of a scheme to lay out the top of the hill with gardens, restaurant, dancing theatre etc. The engineer was Sir George Croydon Marks who had built previous cliff railways (eg Bridgnorth); it was operated by the water balance method with the water pumped up to the top by steam engine. The 2 carriages, each designed to hold 30 people and connected by high tensile steel cables, were by local coachbuilders, Richard Jones. Electrified in 1922 and restored after sale in 1976.  

The 2-storey Cliff Railway House is set into the slope; 4-window red brick front with painted dressings, hipped slate roof and brick chimney stacks rising either side of central cross gable with pediment treatment; datestone to centre. Pediments over splayed 1-window corners. Parapet with ball finials over cornice and pilaster strips terminated just below the 1st floor cornice. Horned sash windows with cills and keystones; arched openings to ground floor, broader to central main entrance; panelled doors. Side elevations have sash and casement windows, sash windows to rear with central splayed bay. Red brick walls step up along the stepped platforms of the lower station. Twin railway tracks set into a cutting with concrete banks, diverge at crossing point. 3 out of 4 timber bridges remain. At top end concrete walls to the stepped platforms lead into the corrugated roofed upper station with boarded valence to front.  

 

Group value.