The Railway Tavern, a former Stockton and Darlington Railway inn, Northgate, Darlington

Summary

Public house built 1826-1827 by the Stockton & Darlington Railway as an inn and as a key component of its earliest proto-railway station for Darlington.

Description

Public house, originally intended as an inn forming a proto-railway station, 1826 by John Carter for the Stockton & Darlington Railway, with later alterations including those by J Ross & R Lamb (1871), and GG Hoskins (1898).

MATERIALS: brick, the front elevation finished with painted render, with applied timber dressings to the ground floor and stone quoins to the first floor. Former slate roof replaced with modern tiles.

PLAN: inside the central public entrance is a small lobby giving access to the flanking public rooms that are served by a single bar that spans across the rear of the entrance lobby.

EXTERIOR: front (west) elevation is of two storeys and four bays, that to the south being double width. The first-floor windows are domestic-style single-pane sashes. The ground floor has a frontage incorporating timber pilasters rising from a simple plinth to support a plain frieze topped by a dentilated cornice, these pilasters flanking the windows and the central double doorway. The pilasters have fielded-panelled bases rising to windowsill height. The windows have large, plate glass lower lights and smaller top lights that are divided up with glazing bars to form lozenges. These windows are attributed to the alterations by Hoskins, however the top lights are very similar to the fan lights over the front entrance to the S&DR’s 1826 inn in Stockton. The central entrance is approached by three steps and has a plain rectangular overlight. To its left (north) are two large windows each framed by pilasters, to the right (south) is a double-width canted bay, the frontage carrying around the corner of the building to include a single (now blocked) doorway with a lozenge overlight. The roof has coped gables and brick end stacks, with a smaller ridge stack to the centre.

The other elevations are more domestic in character, generally retaining sash windows. To the centre of the ground floor of the side elevation to the south there is a double window with lozenge top lights, but this lacks pilasters or other external dressings.

INTERIOR: this includes a small timber panelled entrance lobby with opposed doors leading to the two public rooms and evidence of its former use for off-sales. The two public rooms are served by a single bar extending between the rooms. The ornamented, stripped pine bar front is Victorian and was probably originally painted. The rooms contain some fitted bench seating which is thought to relate to the alterations by Hoskins.

History

The Railway Tavern, Darlington was built as an inn by the pioneering Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) in 1826-1827 to cater for people conducting business at its adjacent coal depot, effectively forming a key component of Darlington’s first proto-railway station as well as being one of the earliest railway public houses in the world.

When the railway opened in September 1825, the concept of the railway station had yet to be developed. The only facilities initially at Darlington was a set of coal drops forming a depot at the end of a short branch line, just north-west of where the Great North Road (now High Northgate) crossed the Cocker Beck. Thomas Maynell (the S&DR’s Chairman) had privately built an inn at the S&DR’s Yarm coal depot which, from its opening in October 1825, did a good trade in serving people who often travelled long distances to buy coal. In June 1826 the S&DR decided to build their own inns at both the Stockton and Darlington depots, the following month borrowing £1305 19s from Joseph Pease to pay for their construction. Remarkably, this was before the company had started building its first goods warehouse in the town (September 1826, completed March 1827). The inns, together with a third commissioned the following month for the Aycliffe Lane depot, were designed by John Carter, a master mason who had overseen the construction of bridges along the line. The Stockton inn was duly licenced in September and was opened for business by January 1827. The building is a good illustration of the S&DR’s Quaker-influenced approach to design: good-quality vernacular construction eschewing needless ornamentation. Tenders to operate the newly built Darlington inn were invited in May 1827, but the local magistrates refused to grant a licence. In response the S&DR built a small retail brewery just to the south, on the northern bank of the Cocker Beck. This did not require magistrates to grant a licence to sell beer for consumption off the premises. The brewery was leased out in May 1828 and initially proved profitable, but following a change in the law which allowed the S&DR to finally obtain a licence for its Railway Tavern in autumn 1829, the brewery failed and was converted into warehousing for iron, the building surviving through the C20, being demolished by 2014.

Passenger services on the S&DR were initially provided by private coach operators and were only taken in-house by the railway company at the end of 1833. Although it has been speculated, the Railway Tavern is not known to have played a direct role in the railway’s passenger operations although in 1833 the inn’s landlord, Thomas Stephenson, did propose to run a service transporting passengers and luggage between the railway and the town centre. The S&DR’s primary focus in its early years was the development of its coal depots, the Railway Tavern being conveniently sited for the use of coal agents and customers: this was made explicit in the S&DR’s applications to the magistrates. However, it was over 350m from the main line and consequently, unlike the inn at Aycliffe Lane, the Railway Tavern in Darlington did not develop into a fully functioning railway station.

The Railway Tavern is shown as a building owned by the S&DR on John Dixon’s 1839 plan of the railway. It is also shown on the first edition 1:10560 Ordnance Survey, surveyed 1855, a map which does not appear to label any public houses. The Railway Tavern, Northgate however was trading around this time as it was listed in Whittaker’s directory published 1856.

The Railway Tavern remained in railway ownership as a public house until it was auctioned off in 1870, the associated coal depot being closed around the same time, the land subsequently redeveloped with the laying out of Melville Street and surrounding housing by the 1890s. The public house was refurbished in 1871 by the local architects John Ross and Robert Lamb, this thought to have included the addition of a large bay window to the bar. It was refurbished again by the notable Darlington architect GG Hoskins, the surviving plans being dated 1898, this building work presumably took place shortly after a photograph dated 1900 showing a view up the street from the south. Subsequent alteration, probably in the late C20, has seen the amalgamation of public rooms into two rooms separated by the original central entrance lobby and off-sales counter. The interior retains most of its Victorian bar counter as reconfigured by Hoskins, along with some fitted bench seating thought to date from his alterations. The first floor of the building is understood to be domestic in character but includes one room believed to have been used as a meeting room by the S&DR.

Reasons for Listing

The Railway Tavern, High Northgate, Darlington is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:
* as one of three public houses built 1826-1827 by the pioneering Stockton & Darlington Railway, which adapted the concept of the coaching inn to form proto-railway stations before the concept of the railway station had been developed; these being amongst the earliest buildings constructed by this internationally influential early railway;

Architectural interest:
* for the relative modesty of the original design of the building in comparison to many erected by later railways, illustrating the S&DR’s Quaker-influenced approach to architecture and the company’s financial constraints in 1826;

* the later modifications to the building, particularly its ground-floor street frontage, designed 1898 by the notable Darlington architect GG Hoskins contribute architectural interest in showing the developmental history of the building.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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