Walling of former railway coal depot, Stockton and Darlington Railway, Stockton Town Centre, Stockton-on-Tees

Summary

Railway-served coal depot originally built for the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, 27 September 1825. Mainly survives as outer retaining walls defining the former extent of the depot extending south west from the Grade II* listed weigh house and Railway Tavern, which were both built to serve the depot.

Description

Railway-served former coal depot, 1824-1825 for the Stockton & Darlington Railway, partly reconfigured late C19 and altered after the closure of the railway line in the late 1970s.

DESCRIPTION
Survives as an outer wall defining the extent of the original coal depot, the walls retaining higher ground outside the yard. Most of the walling is brick, the southern wall being stone-built. The regular buttresses are considered to be the cut-back dividing walls which separated the individual bays of the coal and lime drops. At the northern end of the yard there is a complete stone and brick-built dividing wall, retaining monolithic stone blocks that would have supported the timber way-beams supporting the railway track over the drops.

History

The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was pioneering: its 1823 enabling Act gave it powers to operate a public railway for the carriage of both passengers and a full range of goods, however it expected to make most of its revenue through the transportation of coal between collieries just beyond Shildon to depots along the line, principally at Darlington, Yarm and at the line’s terminus at Stockton. In July 1824 the S&DR board asked George Stephenson to construct the Stockton depot. This was built at St John’s Well, adjacent to the road bridge across the River Tees, some 250m south of the ultimate terminus of the line on the river quayside closer to the centre of Stockton. When the line opened 27 September 1825, the depot was still incomplete. It had no weigh house or other buildings and only some of the coal drops were operational although they had been offered for rent to seven colliery owners on 16 September. The weigh house (see List entry 1139963) was completed by April 1826, operational by July. In June 1826 the S&DR decided to build the Railway Tavern (see List entry 1139964) which was opened by the end of the year to serve people attending the depot, replacing a set of temporary shelters. In this way the depot formed the nucleus of a developing proto-railway station, a coach station (for passengers) and a goods shed both being added to the west in the 1830s.

The earliest map depiction of the depot is on a sketch plan of Stockton dated 1828 published by Brewster in 1829. Around this time the depot was handling around 20,000 tons of coal and 2000 tons of lime annually. By 1830 there were 18 separate drops for coal and seven for lime. The depot is shown in detail on the John Harris plan of 1846, showing the 18 separate coal drops in a line along the western side of the yard, each bay served by two railway sidings running over their tops, these allowing the coal to be tipped from waggons directly into the individual bays below, different bays used for different grades of coal or rented by different collieries or coal agents. At the southern end of the yard another pair of shorter sidings, connected via turntables off sidings from the main line, served two sets of bays labelled Lime Depots, with eleven bays in total. This arrangement is also shown on the 1855 1:528 Ordnance Survey Town Plan. By the 1890 survey for the 1:2500 Ordinance Survey map, the yard had been reorganised, perhaps after the S&DR was merged with the North Eastern Railway in 1863. The lime depots with their awkward access via turntables were removed, replaced with a new siding serving bays along the east side of the yard, these probably for coal. The northern five bays of the original run of coal drops along the western side of the yard were enclosed within a building, this almost certainly being used for lime, although the yard was just labelled as Coal Depot. This building was removed sometime between the 1939 and 1960 1:2500 maps, although the rest of the coal yard remained in operation until the mid-1970s. Following the removal of the railway lines and most of the bay divisions, leaving the rear walls to continue as a boundary wall, the yard was subsequently used as a council highways depot.

Reasons for Listing

The walling of the former railway coal depot is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic Interest:
* as the surviving element of the coal depot constructed in the mid-1820s by George Stephenson for the internationally pioneering Stockton & Darlington Railway. The depot was the main revenue generating facility and formed the nucleus of its proto-railway station at its Stockton terminus.

Architectural Interest:
* of the Stockton and Darlington Railway’s three major coal depots, this is the only one that has not been built over; the extent of the yard still allowing an appreciation of the scale of the depot.

Group Value:
* with the neighbouring former weigh house and Railway Tavern, both listed at Grade II*; the former coal depot being the reason for their construction in the 1820s.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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