Railway Warehouse and Loading Shed, Old Goods Yard, Heywood, Rochdale

Description

335/0/10074 SEFTON STREET
26-OCT-10 RAILWAY WAREHOUSE AND LOADING SHED, OL
D GOODS YARD

II
Railway warehouse and loading shed built c1841-3. On Heywood branch line by Thomas Gooch for the Manchester and Leeds Railway Company. Coursed, hammer-dressed sandstone and timber with slate roof.

PLAN: Rectangular building formerly with a track entering and exiting through the gable walls and running alongside the NE side wall. Building comprises six-bay, full-height loading shed, with three-bay, three-storey warehouse at NW end, with upper floor over-sailing the track lane.

EXTERIOR: High stone plinth, double-pitched slate roof. NW gable wall of three bays with kneelers, stone coping and a blind roundel to the apex. Central bay has square windows with projecting stone sills on the ground and first floors, now boarded. Basement window beneath set into plinth, with recessed coursed stone blocking. To left is tall, wide opening with timber lintel where track originally exited the building, now boarded over with corrugated metal sheeting. Similar square window at first-floor level. To right are two wide doorways set one above the other, separated by a timber lintel and timber sill. Both retain timber double doors; that to first floor now boarded over with corrugated metal sheeting, and modern metal roller shutter over ground-floor door. Above first-floor doorway is blocked opening for a cat's head hoist.

SW side wall has similar square windows on ground and first floors to three left bays, now boarded. The first and second bays have basement windows set into plinth; the third bay has a taller window which rises through the plinth and lit the warehouse stair to the basement. All now have recessed coursed stone blocking. To right three further original wide bays with timber lintels supported by the stone wall to the left and by metal brackets on three massive square timber posts, now raised on concrete padstones, to the centre and right. Fourth bay has been infilled with coursed watershot sandstone, with straight joint between this bay and three warehouse bays to left. High plinth continued and two tall windows with segmental arched lintels and projecting chamfered sills. Fifth and sixth bays are covered with corrugated metal sheeting with metal walkway. Modern doorway and two windows in sixth bay. Behind sheeting fifth bay (and possibly sixth bay) retains timber screen formed by a series of hinged timber doors, enabling wide loading bay to be opened up.

NE side wall has three bays to right with square windows with projecting sills on the ground and first floors. Ground-floor windows have recessed, coursed stone blocking and first-floor windows now boarded. To left are six bays with tall rectangular windows with projecting stone sills to each bay; the four left bays now covered by modern lean-to extension.

SE gable wall is covered by corrugated metal sheeting with small modern porch to left and tall, wide opening to right where track originally entered building. Behind sheeting is vertical timber planking.

INTERIOR: The roof structure is queen post trusses with outer raking struts with metal shoes and strapping, and two purlins to each side. A stone cross wall separates the warehouse from the loading shed, with a wide opening on the NE side for the track lane. The lane is separated from the basement and ground floor of the warehouse by a second stone wall, whilst the first floor over-rides it with two large trap doors set into the floor. The ground and first floors of the warehouse both have timber floorboards resting on deep, closely spaced joists supported by two trusses running across the building, with a cast-iron column at their mid-point. In south corner is a timber winder stair leading up to the first floor, with a staircase beneath leading down to the basement (basement stair now compartmentalised by modern concrete block wall). Cross wall has doorways with plank doors to ground and first floors, and square windows with vertical bars and wooden shutters. Track lane wall has similar window on ground floor with a wider opening in the bay to each side, now boarded over. Both walls have blocked basement windows. On first floor the trap in bay three retains half the trap door and part of the hoisting mechanism with beams holding two iron pulley wheels and the remains of a capstan wheel. There are also beams and pulley wheels relating to the former hoist over the external first-floor doorway.
In the south corner of the loading shed is a modern single-storey, flat-roofed office block which is not of special interest. The modern lean-to extension built against the NE side wall is not of special interest either.

HISTORY: The Manchester and Leeds Railway Company was initially formed in 1825, but it was not until 1836 that parliament passed the bill to allow the line's construction and George Stephenson and Thomas Gooch were appointed joint principal engineers. The main line was completed in 1841 and meanwhile Thomas Gooch had commenced work on the Heywood branch line in November 1840. It opened on 15 April 1841. A plan of 1843 shows a single line terminating with the warehouse and loading shed which were built approximately parallel with a canal warehouse of 1834 (now demolished). In 1847 the company was renamed the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, and in 1848 a through-line was opened to Bury, which swept past the northern edge of the warehouse and loading shed. A new road, Sefton Street, appears on the 1851 Ordnance Survey map, curving round the southern side of the building and it is likely that the boundary wall and gate piers of the goods yard in which it stands were built around this time.

SOURCES
M W Kirby, Stephenson, George (1781-1848), colliery and railway engineer, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 1 June 2010.
George W Carpenter, rev, Gooch, Thomas Longridge (1808-1882), civil and railway engineer, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 1 June 2010.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The railway warehouse and loading shed at the Old Goods Yard, Sefton Street, Heywood, of c1841-3 is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date: It is an early example of a railway warehouse and loading shed, built c1841-3 on the cusp of the pioneering first phase of railway construction and the 'railway mania' second phase of development.
* Historic Interest: It is associated with the railway engineer Thomas Gooch as it stands at the end of the original Heywood branch line built by him in 1840-1 which is connected to the main Manchester and Leeds railway built jointly by Gooch and George Stephenson in 1836-41. Both lines were constructed during the pioneering first phase of railway development.
* Architectural Interest: The original function and layout of the building as a transhipment warehouse moving goods between the rail and road networks remains clearly discernable. The warehouse, which occupies one end of the building, has similarities of layout with an adjacent earlier canal warehouse (demolished) illustrating the transition from canal to railway transportation.
* Intactness: The building survives remarkably intact with little in the way of alteration to the basic form. The warehouse in particular retains much of its original structure including floors, staircase, cast-iron columns, window shutters and doors, with rare survivals of pulley mechanisms and capstan wheel on the top floor relating to manual hoist systems.

Reasons for Listing

The railway warehouse and loading shed at the Old Goods Yard, Sefton Street, Heywood, of c1841-3 is recommended for designation at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date: It is an early example of a railway warehouse and loading shed, built c1841-3 on the cusp of the pioneering first phase of railway construction and the 'railway mania' second phase of development.
* Historic Interest: It is associated with the railway engineer Thomas Gooch as it stands at the end of the original Heywood branch line built by him in 1840-1 which is connected to the main Manchester and Leeds railway built jointly by Gooch and George Stephenson in 1836-41. Both lines were constructed during the pioneering first phase of railway development.
* Architectural Interest: The original function and layout of the building as a transhipment warehouse moving goods between the rail and road networks remains clearly discernable. The warehouse, which occupies one end of the building, has similarities of layout with an adjacent earlier canal warehouse (demolished) illustrating the transition from canal to railway transportation.
* Intactness: The building survives remarkably intact with little in the way of alteration to the basic form. The warehouse in particular retains much of its original structure including floors, staircase, cast-iron columns, window shutters and doors, with rare survivals of pulley mechanisms and capstan wheel on the top floor relating to manual hoist systems.

External Links

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