Stockton And Darlington Railway Carriage Works

Workshops built around 1853 by Joseph Sparkes for the Stockton & Darlington Railway Company. Constructed of small coursed squared sandstone, now mostly rendered, with brick and freestone dressings under Welsh slate roofs.

The building comprises a rectangular plan with a tall central block of two bays and two storeys set at right angles to the track, flanked by a nine-bay south range and an eight-bay north range, both of single storey. Carriages entered and left via a principal east entrance connected to a spur from the coal yard branch line. Two turntables within the central block aligned with two longitudinal internal tracks that ran the length of the building.

The main east elevation features a two-bay, two-storey central block with quoins and a plain sill band to the upper windows with a top frieze. A principal ground floor entrance has stepped voussoirs, now partly blocked. Two first floor windows in stone architraves are boarded over. The single storey flanking ranges have quoins with all window openings set in shallow segmental-headed panels. Windows in the north range are large cross casements, now blocked, while those in the south range have recently inserted modern uPVC replacements. All roofs are hipped with chimneys at the sides and rear of the central block. The west elevation is three bays and three storeys with plain sashes or plate-glass windows, all blocked, and a small recessed doorway. The right and left returns are each three bays and two storeys with a large centrally placed vehicle entry.

The interior of the central bay originally formed a repair and lifting shop with a loft over and a small cottage to the rear. This has been remodelled by removal of walls, flues and fireplaces to form a central space; the upper parts of the walls are carried on large iron beams. Timber runways for an underhung travelling crane, a secondary feature, survive within the modified interior. The loft formed the works's pattern store and has king post trusses with hips to the east and west ends. The south range originally housed heated stores and offices in the end bay, with the remainder forming the paint shop. The floor has been lowered by 1 metre and an inspection pit inserted. The north range formed joiners and blacksmiths shops. Internal structures have been built in both ranges to create offices and associated spaces. Both ranges have Queen Post roofs with raked struts and triple side purlins, similar to those in the nearby North Road Station.

The carriage works stands in the north western part of the site known since the 1830s as North Road, developed by the Stockton & Darlington Railway between 1831 and 1853. The site occupies a triangle of land between the original Stockton & Darlington Railway, which opened for traffic on 27 September 1825, and a branch line to a coal depot opened the same day. This became the location for most of the company's subsequent development in Darlington. From its earliest years, the Stockton & Darlington Railway Company had contracted out the building of its carriages, with repairs probably carried out at Shildon. In 1853, the company changed this practice and developed a purpose-built works for the construction and maintenance of railway carriages, reflecting growth in passenger traffic. Joseph Sparkes designed the works, and it is thought his original drawings proposed a more elaborate, ornamental building than the utilitarian structure finally constructed. With the advent of longer carriages that could not be accommodated in the works with its central transverse access using turntables rather than gable-end doors, the building went out of use around 1884. It subsequently supported various uses and in the 1990s became occupied by heritage railway organisations as a workshop.