Throston Engine House And Wall Adjoining

Throston Engine House and the adjoining wall, located on Old Cemetery Road in Hartlepool, were built in the 1830s to house a hauling engine. The structure is made of limestone ashlar and features a gabled Welsh slate roof that was added later after the removal of the header tank. It is a single-storey building with a fully exposed basement on the south-east and north-east sides, while the other two sides are hidden by a railway embankment.

Each side of the engine house has Tuscan pilasters and clasping pilasters that rise from a floor string and are topped with an entablature. The rebuilt gables on the north-east and south-west sides, along with the south-east side, each have three bays. The south-west side has two windows and a central doorway, while the south-east side features three round-headed windows, all with moulded architraves that extend to the floor string but lack doors and glazing. There are also four blocked round-headed openings on the south-east face of the basement, with the leftmost being a later addition.

The lower part of the north-west side is obscured by the remains of a contemporary adjoining building, above which pilasters define single-bay returns at each end. Extending from the north angle is a low wall with a string course below the parapet, consisting of two bays defined by a single pilaster strip on the north-east face, and featuring two round-headed openings without glazing. This building contains the remains of the bed of the hauling engine that was used to draw coal wagons up the railway incline to the top of the former coal staithes. A dispute between railway companies over the use of these coal-shipping facilities was a significant factor in the establishment of the new town of West Hartlepool in the 1840s.