A first look inside Darlington's £35m railway heritage development

With a hard hat on her head, she is standing amid the girders that form the skeletal frame of the first new building of the £35m Railway Heritage Quarter. It will be a “cathedral of steam” and is to be the centrepiece of Darlington’s celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

Council leader Jonathan Dulston and curator Leona White-Hannant on the viewing platform of the new Darlington Locomotive Works. Leona is holding a large spanner that was one of the few items found during the building work. All pictures by SARAH CALDECOTT

“Our heritage and history is really important and it is great that we can shout about it,” she says. “It isn’t just about Darlington, it is about putting the whole region on the map.”

Leona is looking down from the first floor of what will be known as the Darlington Locomotive Works, where the A1 Trust will build and maintain its steam engines – the grand Tornado and the forthcoming Prince of Wales. These are the first mainline steam engines to be built in Britain since the early 1960s.

Workmen below Leona are installing the piles that will hold up the 25 metre long inspection pit (above) which will enable engineers to work on the underneath of the engines – Tornado weighs more than 100 tons, so needs to be well supported.

The “cathedral of steam”, as the A1 Trust is already calling the locomotive works, is to the north of the railway line which runs from North Road station to Bishop Auckland on the trackbed of the S&DR. It is hoped that in future, live steam events will be held beside the line, and a bridge is to be built over the tracks so the works can be accessed directly from the museum on the south of the line.

A bridge will span the tracks and connect the rear of the Head of Steam museum to the new viewing platform of the locomotive works

From her lofty vantage point, Leona can see how the railway quarter will stretch from the Skerne Bridge – the world’s oldest continuously operated railway bridge which featured on the back of the £5 note in the 1990s – up to the 1861 engine shed, which is currently the home of a scrapyard but is to be restored so that it can house some of the many local railway heritage groups.

Leona White-Hannant looking towards the railway museum

In front of her, is the wedge of land that perhaps contains greatest concentration of early railway buildings in the world: the Merchandise Station (1833), the goods agent's office in MacNay Street (1840), the lime cells (1840s), North Road station and museum (1842) and the Hopetown Carriage Works (1853).

All are to be upgraded as part of the railway quarter work. The museum is to become an immersive experience; the carriageworks are to become a study centre and an open store of the museum’s many items that rarely see the light of day – these include the old town museum in Tubwell Row and the recently acquired Cleveland Bridge archive.

Looking through the new locomotive works towards the green showfield which was the site of Kitchings' foundry. The white building in the distance is the Hopetown Carriageworks

Inbetween the museum and the carriageworks is the green showfield which is to remain as an events space. It was a scrapyard where steam engines were brought to be disassembled and cut-up, and before that, it was the site of the Kitchings’ foundry, which is a story that is hoped will be explored more fully in the new quarter.

It is a story that exemplifies the great changes and opportunities the railway opened up to local people. William Kitching, a weaver, opened an ironmonger’s shop on the corner of Tubwell Row and Low Row in 1790; by 1796, he had opened a foundry at the rear of the shop to provide implements for mills and farmers.

In 1821, his son, also William, made the astute move of subscribing £400 to help the newly-formed Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) get up and running. In 1824, William received his first contract from the S&DR: 15 guineas-worth of nails to fix the rails to the sleepers.

By 1831, William and his brother, Alfred, had so much railway work pouring into Tubwell Row that they had to move to bigger premises. They relocated next to the railway – beside the earliest North Road station, in fact – and in 1834, when a locomotive crashed, they were asked to rebuild it.

It became the first of 27 engines built by the foundry in 25 years, most of which were designed by Timothy Hackworth. The most famous of these is Derwent, of 1845. It worked on the S&DR until 1869 when it was sold to Pease & Partners for use on colliery railways in south Durham. It helped build Waskerley reservoir in the 1870s, and in 1898 the Peases presented it to the North Eastern Railway for Preservation. It last steamed in 1925 at the centenary of the railway, reaching a speed of 12mph which astonished onlookers, and then went on display alongside Locomotion No 1 at Bank Top station. In 1975, the two venerable engines were moved to the new railway museum.

Derwent taking part in the 1925 calvacade, when it reached an amazing top speed of 12mph. Picture: Head of Steam

Derwent – the oldest surviving Darlington-made loco – is still there, standing only a couple of hundred yards from where it was built, and although Kitchings’ foundry has disappeared beneath the grass, their company became Whessoe and employed 3,000 people in Brinkburn Road where they specialised in building gasholders which can still be found all around the world.

Derwent, the oldest Darlington-built loco in existence, in the railway museum. Picture: Head of Steam

So Kitchings started as a small ironmonger’s shop but because of the railway grew into a globally renowned business employing thousands, and it is intriguing to think what might remain beneath the grass of its showfield of the foundry where Derwent was built.

The new development will bring out other stories, with the 1833 Merchandise Station, the oldest building on the wedge and now known simply as the “goods shed”, finding a new prominent role.

An artist's impression of what the entrance of the 1833 Merchanise Station - or goods shed - will look like when it has become the welcome centre

The S&DR built it beside the Great North Road to handle goods that were to be transferred from rail to road. It was extended in 1840 when a clocktower was added, just as there was a movement across the country driven by the railways to remove local time zones and standardise time so that everyone’s clock told the same time.

The goods shed needs much restoration but is due to become the starting point for a visitor to the railway heritage quarter.

“I think the goods shed is the most exciting part of the project,” says Leona. “It will be fantastic for it to be visible from the main road again, and I would love to bring it back to life as it was in 1833.

“As the entry point, we want it to be less museumy and not intimidating for people.

“We want it to welcome local people and for everyone in the town to feel that the museum and railway heritage is theirs and that there is something for everyone on the site.”

On a visit to the site last week, Memories was invited to sign one of the girders in the new locomotive works (above) and our name went above those of Leona and the council leader, Jonathan Dulston (below).

“I am really looking forward to 2025,” he said. “It will be Darlington’s Olympic ceremony moment when we showcase to the world why Darlington is the start of the railway story.”

Our graffiti will soon be covered up as the building’s skin is put on in the coming weeks. Whatever will future historians make of our scrawl?

The new locomotive works taking shape beside Bonomi Way

North Road station was practically derelict in 1971 and conversion into a museum in 1975 effectively saved it. Fifty years on, the next stage in its evolution is beginning

A steam engine calls at North Road station in March 1963