Summary

Railway workers' cottages built in the early C19 for Timothy Hackworth, the Stockton & Darlington Railway's first superintendent of locomotives.

Description

Former railway workers’ housing, early C19, for Timothy Hackworth, Superintendent of Locomotives for the Stockton & Darlington Railway 1825-1840. Restored in 1975.

MATERIALS: magnesium limestone rubble with sandstone lintels (the south eastern bay is of sandstone instead of limestone), a renewed pantile roof, buff brick chimney stacks with square, buff pots.

PLAN: altered but retaining evidence of the original division into cottages.

EXTERIOR: single-storey and of seven bays, originally divided into two double-fronted cottages with a single-fronted cottage to the south-east, the divisions being marked by twin-flued ridge stacks. The original central cottage has lost its front door (the infilling stonework being greyer than the surrounding masonry) being largely combined with the south-eastern cottage internally. Windows have dressed sandstone lintels and projecting sills and have renewed six-over-six paned sashes. The two front doors are six-panelled, set in plain openings with sandstone lintels. The front elevation includes a Stockton & Darlington Railway plaque (used to mark company-owned housing) with the number G9. The rear is altered, but not extended, detailed in a similar way to the front elevation.

INTERIOR: not inspected but reported to be the product of post-1970 renovation.

History

Soho Cottages are thought to have been built as workers’ housing for Timothy Hackworth (1786-1850) who lived in the attached Soho House and whose railway works, Soho Works, was established on adjacent land in 1833, all subsequently bought by the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) in 1855.

Hackworth was the S&DR’s first Superintendent of Locomotives. He had been appointed on the recommendation of George Stephenson in 1825 shortly after he had declined an offer of partnership in Robert Stephenson & Company, the world’s first dedicated locomotive works. Hackworth was a skilled early locomotive engineer, having assisted William Hedley in 1813-1815 in the construction of Puffing Billy and two other locomotives at Wylam Colliery. As the chief resident engineer for the S&DR he modified and rebuilt the locomotives supplied by Stephenson and went on to design and build new locomotives for the company (including the George and the Globe), ensuring the early success of the S&DR. Hackworth’s willingness to share information with visiting engineers and railway promoters resulted in the S&DR significantly influencing the development of other early railways both in England and abroad. Hackworth was responsible for several early developments and inventions concerning steam locomotives, but took out few patents and, unlike some contemporary engineers, appears to have been uninterested in self-promotion. In 1833 Hackworth established Soho Works on land immediately adjacent to his house whilst still undertaking duties for the S&DR including the management of the company’s Shildon Works up until 1840. Soho Works built Russia’s first steam locomotive (1836) and three of the earliest locomotives used in Canada (1838).

Soho Cottages are thought to have been built as a row of three cottages in two stages: the single-fronted south-eastern cottage was built in sandstone at the same time as Soho House sometime in or before 1833. The north-western end of the terrace (originally a pair of double-fronted cottages) was built mainly in magnesium limestone rubble, most likely after 1833, but certainly before the 1841 census. This census shows that one of the cottages was occupied by Hackworth’s widowed sister-in-law and her five children. The 1851 census (a year after Hackworth’s death) still records just three cottages in addition to Soho House, however by 1852 the cottages had been subdivided into smaller units by splitting them along the line of the ridge, being shown on the first edition 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1857) as a block of six back-to-back units, probably representing single or two-roomed workers’ cottages. Probably by the 1871 census, these subdivisions had been reversed, going back to being three multi-roomed cottages. In the mid-C20, before the survey for the 1962 Ordnance Survey map, the cottages were reconfigured again to form two cottages, the front door of the central cottage being infilled. In 1975 the cottages were restored along with Soho House which was turned into the Timothy Hackworth Museum as part of the S&DR’s 150th anniversary celebrations, with new renovations in 2020-2021 in advance of the 200th anniversary.

Reasons for Listing

Soho Cottages is included on the List at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* built in local vernacular style, Soho Cottages (together with Grade II* listed Soho House) forms a terrace of railway workers’ housing which is amongst the earliest built anywhere in the world.

Historic interest:
* built for the owner of the adjacent Soho Works, Timothy Hackworth, the pioneering engineer of early steam locomotives who was responsible for much of the early success and international influence of the Stockton & Darlington Railway;
* included with the attached Soho House that was preserved to form the Timothy Hackworth Museum as part of the Stockton & Darlington Railway 150th anniversary celebrations in 1975 which also saw the opening of the National Railway Museum in York.

Group value:
* one of a group of early railway related structures in Shildon, dubbed the ‘cradle of the railways’.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26414629

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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