Exeter Central Station Building: Application for Listed status
Devon Buildings Group has applied for listed status for Exeter Central Station. ECS is keen to support the application and wrote the email below in support to Historic England. After the old timber-framed station, known as Queen Street Station, burnt down in 1927, the new station was opened by the Mayor of Exeter on 1st July 1933 and renamed Central Station. It was in a grand, finely-detailed, neo-classical style, as was appropriate for the Georgian character of pre-war Exeter, but this was combined with elements of the ‘moderne’ or Art Deco style. Devon Building Group together and ECS both campaigned successfully for the re-installation of the cupola on the station's main building.
Email from ECS Chair to Historic England, 14 May 2026
Dear Mr Tait,
I understand that Historic England is currently considering an application for listed status for Exeter Central Station, Devon (Case Number 1495013). Exeter Civic Society strongly supports this application; we believe that it is a unique building, of good quality, and well worth preserving.
- It is one of a relatively small number of railway stations built during the 1930s, given that the railway network was no longer expanding at the time.
- While there are one or two other contemporary stations of broadly similar style e.g. Ramsgate Station, Exeter Central is unique in design. Its distinctiveness was recognised in Stephen Parissien’s The English Railway Station published by English Heritage.
- It is of high quality, as described in Devon Buildings Group’s application. Recent work done on the station building has enabled passengers to appreciate anew the height and spaciousness of the booking hall.
- While the rooftop cupola did not survive so well as much of the rest of the station, its replacement with an identical copy has helped to maintain the original appearance. Alongside Devon Buildings Group, Exeter Civic Society had also been pressing Network Rail to reinstate the cupola, and applauded the fact that they did so: https://exetercivicsociety.org.uk/central-station-cupola-lifted-into-space/ (Exeter Civic Society news item from October 2025).
- The station building exists in very much the same form and appearance as when it was first built. Services through the station nowadays are fewer than in the 1930s, but the size and layout of the station reflect the earlier importance of the Exeter-Waterloo line, when express and local services required separate platforms, and when the station had the additional function of handling parcels.
- The pedestrianisation of the front of the station has created a valuable and much used public space, without compromising the original appearance of the station. There is now a pleasing ensemble of station and piazza which shows the curved and well-designed building to best effect.
- There are fewer and fewer public buildings from the 1930s remaining in the city centre – the former central library, telephone exchange and two cinemas (one now a bingo hall) are practically the only other ones – and we feel that it is important to retain, protect and celebrate those exemplary ones which we still have.
Yours sincerely
