2-791-347 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ruins of the Octagon Building, 1844. Damage after a fire at New Cross railway station in south-east London: '...at the works attached to the station of the South Eastern, Brighton, and Croydon Railways at New-cross, resulting in the destruction of property to an enormous amount...It consists of an assemblage of vast workshops, large lathe and planing machine rooms, furnace rooms, carpenters' and painters' rooms, carriage and fire engine houses; and a grand octagonal engine house...The upright walls of the upper story, or lantern, which was supported by four stone pillars, while the body of fire was raging beneath, was so charred and splintered by the intensity of the heat...while the wreck of the several locomotives was to be seen along the extensive line of shedding, presenting a most serious loss of this valuable property of the company'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I.