Railway lineside cabins known as Black Boy Stables, Shildon, County Durham

Summary

A group of four line side or plate layers' cabins sited at the junction of the original main line of the Stockton & Darlington Railway with two of its early branch lines, one cabin thought to pre-date 1839, potentially being a proto-signal box.

Description

Group of four ancillary buildings for railway staff, early to mid-C19, for the Stockton & Darlington Railway with one added in 1897-1915.

MATERIALS: roughly coursed sandstone rubble, restored Welsh slate roofs.

PLAN: four single-celled buildings: the largest is to the centre with a semi-detached unit to the north-west (building 2) which in turn has a semi-detached unit (building 3) to the rear (north-east). The fourth building (Castle Cabin) is detached, just under 2m to the south-east of the central building. The Black Boy branch line passed on the north-eastern side of the complex, the Surtees Railway branch line passed on the south-western side, the original main line of the Stockton & Darlington Railway passing to the south.

EXTERIOR:
Central building: this is a single storey with an attic, being of three bays with a central door flanked by window openings, this facing south-west. The gables are coped. There is an opening to the attic in the south-east gable and a ground floor window to that part of the north-west gable not covered by the smaller, attached building 2. The rear wall (facing the route of the Black Boy branch line) is blind.

Building 2: this has a single-pitched roof that falls from the tall, front (south-west) wall which has the building’s single door and window openings.

Building 3: is a later addition attached to the rear (north-east) of building 2, built on slightly higher ground. It has a double-pitched roof with coped gables to the sides. The only opening is a double width doorway filling the north-east side.

Building 4, Castle Cabin: this has a shallow, mono-pitched roof that falls from its south-east side, this having its doorway which overlooked the original main line of the Stockton & Darlington Railway where it was joined by the two branch lines. The two side walls each have a single window, the south-west wall being curved, cutting back the southern corner of the building.

INTERIOR: the buildings have unplastered walls and block paving floors.

History

The group of buildings known as Black Boy Stables originate before the 1857 survey for the first edition Ordnance Survey (which shows three of the four buildings), with one of the buildings thought to be that depicted on the 1839 Dixon plan of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR). The last building added to the group (building 3), the northernmost one built on slightly higher ground, was constructed sometime between 1897 and 1915.

The origin of the name ‘Black Boy Stables’ is uncertain. ‘Black Boy’ derives from Black Boy Colliery which lay to the north of Shildon, connected to the S&DR via the Black Boy branch line (opened 1827). None of the buildings appear to have been stables and although sited at the bottom of the rope-worked incline for the Black Boy branch line, the earlier buildings back onto this line, and instead face directly onto the Surtees Railway (opened 1831). The largest building of the group (building 1) was possibly a provender store used for storing and preparing horse feed and the building to its west (building 2) might have been a tack room, although this is traditionally considered to have been a banksmen’s cabin used by staff supervising the bottom of the incline. Building 4 to the east overlooks where the two branch lines joined the original main line of the S&DR (opened 1825). This building, known as Castle Cabin with its crenulated front wall, was similar in design to cabins at the junction at Simpasture and at Westbrook in Darlington. It is thus considered to have been built for the S&DR and was probably originally used by staff employed to oversee the operation of the junction before the development of signal boxes from the 1860s. In general terms, all of the buildings are best categorised as lineside cabins, and they are likely to have been used, at some point at least, by plate layers, staff employed to inspect and maintain the railway line. The east and west cabins both originally had single flue chimneys, probably serving small coal-fired stoves. Similar small lineside cabins, often called plate layers’ cabins, were once a very common feature of railways nationally as large numbers of staff were employed to inspect and maintain railway lines, the London and Birmingham Railway for instance employing around eight men for every mile of line in 1839.

The pioneering S&DR started commercial operation in 1825. Although initially mainly operated with horse-haulage combined with steam-powered, rope-worked inclines, the company championed the use of steam locomotives from the beginning. Through its policy of freely sharing information with visiting engineers and railway promoters, the S&DR was highly influential in the early establishment of other railways both in England and abroad, being described by Henry Booth of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1831 as ‘the great theatre of practical operations on railways’. Subsequently the S&DR’s pivotal role in railway history has been marked by major celebrations every 50 years, including the opening of the National Railway Museum in 1975. The lineside cabins were restored as part of the 1975 celebrations as part of Shildon’s railway museum. They were fire-damaged in 1985 and left derelict. In 2021 they are undergoing restoration in advance of the 200th anniversary of the S&DR.

Reasons for Listing

The group of railway lineside cabins known as Black Boy Stables at Shildon is included on the List at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as nationally rare surviving examples of once very common lineside structures that were highly characteristic of C19 railways, these also being early examples;
* that Castle Cabin (the easternmost of the group of cabins) may be a proto-signal box, used by staff who oversaw the operation of the junction between the main line and the two branch lines before the development of the classic signal box from the 1860s.

Historic interest:
* built for the pioneering and internationally influential Stockton & Darlington Railway, preserved as part of the 150th anniversary celebrations in 1975.

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

External Links

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