Soho House

Soho House is an early 19th-century house built for Timothy Hackworth, who was the Superintendent of Locomotives for the Stockton & Darlington Railway from 1825 to 1840. The house was later divided into two residences for railway managers and was renovated as a museum in 1975.

The building is constructed from dressed sandstone laid to courses, featuring a renewed pantile roof and buff brick chimney stacks with square, buff pots. It appears as a pair of double-fronted properties, with straight stairs rising from just inside their central front doors, and the two homes are interconnected internally.

The exterior showcases a quoined frontage that is two storeys high and consists of six bays, designed to look like a symmetrical pair of properties. The central bay on the first floor of each side is blind, but a reproduction lantern is set above the central front doors. Each front door is six-panelled and includes a simple multi-paned overlight, all framed within a 1975 reproduction classical-style doorcase with fluted pilasters, a frieze, and a cornice. The windows are renewed timber six-over-six pane sashes, featuring monolithic lintels and projecting sills. The eaves have a moulded ashlar cornice, while the gables are coped and include shaped kneelers. The end stacks and central ridge stack are matching, rebuilt in brick, each topped with three pots. The rear outshut, also rebuilt in 1975, is one-and-a-half storeys high and has end stacks.

The interior largely reflects the 1970s renovation for the railway museum, which included some reinstated Victorian fireplaces, kitchen ranges, and various items of joinery, including sets of window shutters.