Bury station house gets £600,000 makeover - now Greater Anglia needs to find a new use for it!
The station master's house at Bury St Edmunds has been restored. - Credit: Greater Anglia
Work to restore the fabric of the former stationmaster's house at Bury St Edmunds' station has been completed - and now Greater Anglia is looking for a new tenant to take over the building that was last used as a nightclub in the mid-1990s.
The company has invested £400,000 in the scheme with a further £192,000 funding being provided by the Railway Heritage Trust to give the Victorian structure a new lease of life.
Since 2019, contractors have worked to reinstate the roof, doors and windows and repair fractured brickwork on the Grade II listed building, which is next to the main railway station.
The building was originally the Station Master’s House and was built in around 1847. At some point it also operated as the station hotel and then, after an extensive refurbishment it opened as The Great Eastern Bar, restaurant and nightclub in 1991 before closing again in 1995.
The building has since stood empty, slowly deteriorating due to the effects of the weather, pigeon infestation and vandalism.
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A future use for the building has yet to be decided - internally it remains a shell and Greater Anglia is hoping to speak to potential tenants. It could be used for commercial, leisure or even converted into residential accommodation.
The freehold of the building will continue to be owned by infrastructure company Network Rail - but it is managed by the train company.
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Greater Anglia’s asset management director, Simone Bailey, said, “We are very grateful to the Railway Heritage Trust for their help and support in restoring this beautiful grade II listed station, to conserve its unique features for future generations to enjoy and to protect the building, making it fit for use in the 21st century.”
Andy Savage, executive director of the Railway Heritage Trust, stated, “The RHT is delighted that Greater Anglia has taken on the restoration of this building, and we are very happy to give a grant towards that work.”
The railway station itself was restored in 2016 thanks to a £1million restoration programme which saw Greater Anglia restore and repair brickwork across the entire station, fix decades of damage caused by leaks, replaced 100m of canopy fascia and carried out some platform adjustments.
