Railway goods shed, coal drops, parcel office and boundary wall, Shildon, County Durham

Summary

Facilities for receiving and dispatching goods by rail, thought to have been established in the late 1850s by the Stockton & Darlington Railway, retained as part of a railway museum since 1975.

Description

Railway goods shed and associated structures, mid-C19 for the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

MATERIALS: irregularly coursed, squared sandstone rubble including some reused sleeper stones, ashlar dressings, Welsh slate roof.

PLAN: a single line, straight-through goods shed with a single cart loading dock to the centre of the south-west side and an office attached to the south-east gable on the southern side of the line. Attached to the north-east side is a set of four coal drops served by a separate siding.

EXTERIOR: the goods shed is of five bays, the attached office is of two bays, both being quoined, the quoins being dressed with margins. Gables are coped, the coping supported by shaped kneelers. Windows are small-paned with glazing bars, covered with external, timber-boarded shutters.

The rail entrance to the shed is via the north-eastern side of the south-east gable, overlooked from the office. The rail entrance is quoined and has boarded double doors below a timber lintel. The north-west gable has a similar entrance allowing the goods siding to extend beyond the shed to ease shunting operations. To the side of the north-west rail entrance is an inserted pedestrian entrance accessed via modern timber steps.

The central bay of the shed’s south-west side has a large, central cart entrance that is quoined and has a round-arched head formed with voussoirs and a keystone. The entrance has vertically boarded doors hung on strap hinges, the round head above also being vertically boarded. To the far right (south-east) there is a window with a stone lintel, projecting sill and external shutters.

The office, raised on a simple plinth and extending from the southern side of the south-east gable, has a four-panel door accessed via external stone steps on its south-west side. Rising from the centre of this side wall is a short square chimney stack with a pot. The south-east gable has a large, round-headed window, the round head having impost blocks, voussoirs and a keystone. The north-eastern side wall has a central window with a stone lintel, this overlooking the line entering the shed.

INTERIOR: the shed retains its timber platform which incorporates a dock for vehicles using the cart entrance, although this dock has undergone some modification to include a wheelchair lift, a set of steps and timber railings. The kingpost roof trusses are exposed.

The office has a six-panel door and an internal window opening into the shed. The office retains cornicing to the ceiling, a fireplace including a round-arched cast iron inset, and a set of built-in cupboards.

SUBSIDIARY ITEMS:
Parcel Office, early C20: a shiplap-boarded timber building with a Welsh slate roof. This has multi-paned windows to all walls except its western gable, this being set up against the western boundary wall of the goods yard. The single door is in the north wall and is four-panelled. There is a small ventilator to the ridge.

Coal drops: this consists of a railway siding that rises on a masonry-walled incline, the track then being supported on simple masonry piers that extend out from the north-east side of the goods shed to form the four bays of the coal drops. A flight of stone steps provides access to the top of the incline.

Boundary wall: this is a mortared wall built of squared sandstone rubble, finished with round-topped coping stones. The wall extends from the parcel office for about 30m northwards to break for a vehicle gateway with timber posts and gate that is set at the north-western corner of the yard. The wall then continues unbroken eastwards and then south-eastwards to the south of Soho Engine Shed to end at the level crossing next to Black Boy Stables.

History

The goods shed was built after the survey for the first edition Ordnance Survey map (1857), being shown on the second edition of 1895. It was probably built in the late 1850s for the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR). Company minutes from 1855 make reference to the need for a goods shed at Shildon as well as to the completion of plans for such a building.

From its opening in 1825, through its first few years of operation, the S&DR was hugely influential both in England and abroad, described by Henry Booth of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1831 as ‘the great theatre of practical operations on railways’. By the 1850s, newer railways were looked to for inspiration, however the S&DR was well established and highly profitable, generating around 9% returns through the 1850s, finally merging with the North Eastern Railway in 1863 on very favourable terms.

The 1:2500 map published 1897 shows the shed as part of a small goods yard of sidings including a crane to the south and a set of enclosures (possibly livestock pens) to the east alongside the surviving boundary wall. It also shows a siding running along the northern side of the shed which suggests that the coal drops were also in existence at this time. The next edition map, surveyed 1915, shows the replacement of the enclosures with a new siding, along with the addition of four small structures along the western boundary, one possibly being the surviving timber parcel office. The depiction of the parcel office is more certain on the map surveyed in 1939, the other three structures along the western boundary being removed by this date. The goods yard is thought to have become disused in the 1960s sometime after the survey for the 1962 map. In 1975 the goods yard was opened to visitors as part of Shildon’s railway museum.

Reasons for Listing

The railway goods shed, (with its coal drops, parcel office and boundary wall) at Shildon is included on the List at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a well-preserved and architecturally well-detailed mid-C19 railway goods shed retaining internal features as well as its attached coal drops, the rare survival of the separate early C20 timber-built parcel office also being of note.

Historic interest
* as a once typical example of a goods shed serving a small community, a reminder of the economic importance of the carriage of mixed goods by C19 railways;
* for its association with the pioneering Stockton & Darlington Railway, being included in the group of structures preserved as part of the railway’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 1975.

Group value:
* one of a group of preserved railway related structures in Shildon, dubbed the ‘cradle of the railways’.

External Links

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.