Long Marton goods shed with office and detached weighbridge office, Long Marton, Cumbria

Summary

Goodshed and offices built for the Midland Railway's Settle to Carlisle line in 1873.

Description

Railway goods shed, 1873 by H J Sanders for the Midland Railway's Settle to Carlisle line.

MATERIALS: local red sandstone (thought to be from Dufton Gill quarry) laid to courses, with quoins and dressings of larger, rock faced blocks; eves and verges of fine dressed stone; Welsh slate roof with gray tile ridges and verges. Cast iron rainwater goods.

PLAN: single storey, single through-line loading and transhipment shed for three wagons with a single storey office attached to the north west gable.

EXTERIOR: North-east elevation
Four regularly spaced windows alternating with three cart loading entrances. The loading entrances have segmentally arched heads and timber doors, the flanking entrances having raised timber thresholds for external loading. The windows are lancets with pointed heads and cast iron tracery including two columns of octagonal lozenges. Stepped eaves of finely dressed red sandstone. Attached office, to the right, is lower and similarly detailed with a pair of lancet windows and a tall, end-ridge stack of red sandstone with limestone dressings including an ornamented cap.

North west gable
Finely dressed red sandstone verges to the gables, the overhanging roof verges being coped with gray tiles. The office gable has a single opening, a doorway with a two centred arched head. This is served by a short flight of stone steps. The goods shed has a segmentally arched railway entrance with a timber door, with a round ventilator opening in the gable.

South west elevation (facing main line)
Elevation similar to the north east elevation except that the cart entrances are blind except for smaller, centrally placed openings: that to the centre being a platform height loading doorway, that to the other two being lancet windows matching the other windows. Above the loading doorway there is a timber canopy.

South east gable
Segmentally arched railway entrance with timber doors to left. To right there is a similarly arched blind opening. Centrally placed, circular ventilation opening to the gable.

INTERIOR
The office retains its corner set fireplace with its simple stone surround and iron grate, along with a match-boarded ceiling, skirtings and floor boards.

SUBSIDIARY ITEM
Small, single storey weighbridge office built of red sandstone with rock faced quoins and ashlar dressings; Welsh slate roof retaining some of its original decorative, perforated ridge tiles; red sandstone chimney with limestone cap. The single doorway (with modern door) is to the south east gable with a small window in the opposite gable and a large window centrally placed to the south west side wall. The rear (north east) wall retains its centrally placed chimney with a fireplace complete with a simple stone surround.

History

The goods shed with its attached office, along with the associated weighbridge office to the north, were built in 1873 by the Midland Railway as part of the Settle to Carlisle railway line. They were designed by the company architect H J Sanders. During the Victorian period, goods traffic was economically more important than passengers so the goods shed was a key component of the railway station at Long Marton: the passenger station building still survives (now in domestic use) and lies about 240m to the north west. The goods shed was designed to accommodate three goods wagons at a time, transferring loads to horse drawn carts via three cart entrances in the north east wall. The form of the three cart entrances suggest that the central one was designed to allow carts to be backed fully into the goods shed (allowing direct transfer of goods with the railway wagon as normally practiced in a transhipment shed) whereas the two flanking entrances (with their raised timber thresholds) are thought to have opened onto raised platforms internally allowing the unloading of carts and wagons at different times and the short term storage of goods within the shed. An additional loading door in the south west wall would have facilitated transfer of goods between a wagon within the shed and a second railway wagon on the run-round loop immediately outside of the shed.
The railway tracks serving the goods yard are still shown on the 1968 1:10560 Ordnance Survey map but were removed by the time of the survey for the 1971 1:2500 map.

Reasons for Listing

* Architecture: good quality architectural design, employing well-finished local red sandstone.
* Preservation: a remarkably little-altered example of a standard Midland Railway design retaining both its goods office and a detached weighbridge office, together with frequently missing features such as ornamental window tracery.
* Rarity: a well-preserved, rare survival of a once ubiquitous building type.
* Group value: being located adjacent to the Settle to Carlisle Line, the goods shed is clearly visible to passing trains and thus has group value with other listed contemporary structures along the line.

External Links

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