Former Carriage Shop At Derby Railway Works

This is a former railway carriage works, dating from 1840, with later 19th and 20th century alterations. Designed by Francis Thompson for the North Midland Railway Company, it is constructed of red brick with ashlar stone dressings, concrete tile and Welsh slate roof coverings, and possesses a metal-framed interior structure. The building is a combination range incorporating carriage workshops, smithies, and offices, alongside an entrance portal that provides access to the polygonal engine house, to which it is attached.

The north-west elevation rises to one, two, and three stories above a basement, and is arranged over 13 bays. These consist of a two-bay, single-story smithy, an eight-bay, two-story carriage shop, and a three-bay, three-story office range, situated above two double doorways that previously provided track access. Wide, segmentally arched windows are found in the smithy and workshop areas, featuring small-paned frames, some of which have been altered. First-floor openings in the workshop range are of two lights, while ground-floor openings are taller, with three lights. In the office range, a former track entry doorway into the workshop has been blocked to form a window.

The principal access to the engine house is to the south-west, defined by wide 'V' jointed ashlar pilasters. There are tall boarded doors beneath a shallow segmental arch, above which sits a segmental-arch headed window and two glazing bar sashes to the first floor, with five sashes to the second floor.

The interior of the workshop features a double arcade of cast iron columns, supporting first-floor galleries. An upper arcade of columns supports an arcade plate, which carries timber tie beams notched for joists, and longitudinally-braced posts that support the upper roof purlin. Subsidiary trusses span the ‘aisles’ and support the lower purlin.

The North Midland complex was the most ambitious of the maintenance workshops built at the Derby Trijunct Station and cost £62,000 to complete. The carriage workshop and the attached engine house represent the most substantial survival of the first generation of railway workshops in the Midlands, holding national significance.