Former Railway Tavern and workers' housing built for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, 50-56 Bridge Road

Former Railway Tavern and Workers' Housing, 50-56 Bridge Road

This is a former inn built in 1826 by John Carter for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, flanked by a pair of railway workers' cottages dating to the 1830s. The three buildings were combined and converted into a hostel in the late 1980s, with later extensions added.

Materials and Construction

The buildings are constructed in brick. The front northern elevation of the inn is neatly laid in Flemish bond, while brick elsewhere is more roughly built, generally in English garden wall bond. The inn's front elevation includes stone dressings comprising quoins, wedge lintels, and two bands. Elsewhere, openings generally have flat arches in brickwork, some neatly gauged. Windowsills are generally stone. The roofing is Welsh slate, and most of the guttering is timber.

Plan and Layout

The inn is arranged on a T-plan, with the main block orientated to Bridge Road forming the head of the T, and a full-height wing extending to the rear containing the main stairs. Since conversion to a hostel, this rear wing has been extended southwards, replacing the footprint of former outbuildings while retaining a carriage arch through the wing giving access to an enclosed cobbled yard to the west.

The western cottage is a single-depth, three-bay building that has been reconfigured internally. The eastern cottage, also of three bays, was originally one room deep on the western side and two rooms deep on the eastern side, but has now been extended to the rear. The direction of its staircase has been reversed.

Exterior

The front elevation on Bridge Road features the inn at its centre: a large, three-bay structure of two storeys raised upon a semi-basement. A pair of front doors, offset to the east of centre, is accessed via seven stone steps. The frontage is framed with rusticated sandstone quoins. A broad stone band runs across the basement, with a thinner painted stone string course at first-floor sill level. The window openings have painted wedge lintels and six-over-six sash windows. The paired front doors are set in a stepped-pilastered doorcase incorporating overlights with lozenge-pattern glazing bars, and topped with a frieze and cornice. The roof is low-pitched and hipped, with two large end stacks rising from the eaves.

The western cottage is roughly built and set back from the inn's frontage. It is a low two-storey building with its ridgeline approximately level with the first-floor window sills of the inn. It comprises three bays with two-over-two sash windows to its upper floor. The off-centre front door may be a post-1980 insertion, with the original access possibly being to the rear. The cottage retains tall end stacks.

The eastern cottage is taller and more carefully built, with good-quality gauged brickwork forming flat arches for the windows. Its frontage is symmetrical of three bays, except for a step in the ridge line caused by the single depth of the western bay and the two-room depth of the remainder. The central front door has a simple pilastered doorcase with a large overlight. The roof retains end stacks.

The rear elevations are more simply detailed and have undergone more alteration, though generally with sympathetic detailing and materials. Window openings generally have flat brick arches and stone sills, with some stone wedge lintels in the rear wing of the inn. Windows are generally sashes, including some two-over-two pane examples.

Interior

The interior was extensively reordered when converted into a hostel in the late twentieth century. The principal stair remains in the rear wing of the inn, but has a replacement bannister. A secondary stair, possibly dating to the division of the inn into two houses in the 1860s, is reported to survive behind a later partition.