Number 1 Old Engine Houses, including steps and retaining wall, Shildon, County Durham

Summary

Vernacular-style railway worker’s house in domestic use from at least the mid-C19, but directly associated with the original engine house built for the Stockton & Darlington Railway’s Brusselton inclines, opened 1825, possibly originally forming the boiler house.

Description

House, originally associated with the engine house for the Brusselton inclines, mid-late 1820s for the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

MATERIALS: coursed local rubble stone, the west gable above the roofline of the neighbouring property being rendered brickwork; renewed pantile roof; rebuilt modern brick chimney stack.

PLAN: two rooms deep with the stair rising from the front door.

EXTERIOR: two-storey house with east and west gables that are raised and stone coped, the west gable having a four-flued ridge stack retaining two chimney pots. The elevations are asymmetric. The windows, of varying sizes, are all two-over-two pane horned sashes with plain monolithic lintels and slightly projecting sills.
South: this has the front door to the far right, being of four-panels with a simple three-light overlight. To the left there is a single window with two slightly narrower windows to the first floor above. There is a butt joint with the quoins of the attached property to the west (2 Old Engine Houses, listed separately), the upper part of the west gable built on top the side wall of this neighbouring property.
East: this is blind except for a single, centrally placed first-floor window and a single door to the ground floor off-set to the right (north), this having a three-light overlight and an enclosed lean-to timber porch.
North: the ground surface is lower on this side of the building, this being the original railway track bed, so that the single window lighting the ground floor and the two first-floor windows all appear raised. Set into the wall, relative to the lowered ground surface, there is a Royal Mail post box.

SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: there is a straight flight of stone steps set against the north elevation leading to the raised garden to the east of the building. This garden is retained by a substantial stone wall incorporating several re-used sleeper stones.

NOTE: the surrounding area forms a scheduled monument.

History

The hamlet of Brusselton was the creation of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) which opened in 1825. None of the houses are shown on George Stephenson’s (1781-1848) 1822 survey for the line, although this does mark buildings further to the west at Low West Thickley. The hamlet developed as railway workers’ housing around the engine house which powered the two rope-hauled railway inclines that took the 1825 main line over the ridge between the valley of the River Gaunless and New Shildon. At first sight, the rubblestone-built 1 Old Engine Houses looks like the oldest surviving building, however its western gable wall rises off the quoined rear wall of the lower and more carefully built 2 Old Engine Houses implying that it is later. Number 2 is considered to have been built to house the twin cylinder steam engine used from the opening of the line in 1825. The pair of cottages 3-4 Old Engine Houses built around the same time for the engineman and fireman/blacksmith. Number 1 is thought to have been directly associated with the engine house (it is reported that the two buildings were formerly interconnected internally, blocked by later brickwork) and may have originally housed the twin boilers noted by Carl von Oeynhausen and Heinrich von Dechan who visited from Prussia in 1826 and 1827 to learn about the operation of the S&DR. The haulage arrangement for the inclines was altered in 1831 with the construction of a new engine and boiler house for a larger steam engine on the opposite side of the line to the north, the earlier engine house was then converted for domestic use, 1 Old Engine Houses presumed to have been solely in domestic use from the 1830s onwards.

The substantial retaining wall for the garden to the east of the house incorporates large numbers of reused railway sleeper stones, many split in two. These appear to be the larger sleeper stones installed by the S&DR in the early 1830s which were generally replaced in the 1840s by timber sleepers, the stones being widely reused by the S&DR for new building and repairs in the 1840s-50s.

Unlike the Middleton Top winding engine house in Derbyshire of 1829 that retains its equipment, the subsequent domestic use of 1 & 2 Old Engine Houses has seen the loss of information about Stephenson’s original arrangement and Hackworth’s later alterations. Although the precise original function of 1 Old Engine Houses is uncertain it is considered to have formed part of the early installation for the inclines. The Brusselton inclines (the wider archaeological and structural remains forming a scheduled monument) are known to have been influential for the development of other early railways, for instance details being published in German by Oeynhausen and Dechan as well as being illustrated by the French civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard in 1834. The complex at Brusselton represents the best surviving collection of S&DR buildings dating to the 1820s, the period for which the railway was most influential both nationally and internationally.

Reasons for Listing

Number 1 Old Engine Houses, including steps and retaining wall, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* a good example of local vernacular construction.

Historic interest:
* built for the Stockton & Darlington Railway and directly associated with the original engine house that powered the Brusselton inclines 1825-1831, as engineered by George Stephenson and modified by Timothy Hackworth.

Group value:
* together with numbers 2 and 3 & 4 Old Engine Houses these buildings are the best surviving group of Stockton & Darlington Railway buildings on the entire line dating to the 1820s, the period in which the railway was most influential, Brusselton being visited by a succession of engineers and railway promoters from around the world in the late 1820s-1830s.

External Links

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