Left: Small brick station building, York. Right: Water-tank.
The complicated history of York's successive railway stations has left a small but significant trail of industrial archeology in the city. A good example is the small building sitting near the first of the arches through its ancient walls. It would originally have been close to the railway track, but its origins and function are now unclear. On the other side of Queen Street from the old (1841) York Railway Station, is a better documented single-storey block with a water-tank at one end, as shown above right. This is a Grade II listed railway building, and, according to the listing text, it was by the architect of the York and North Midland Railway Company, G. T. Andrews, and dates from 1839. So it would have served the original (temporary) railway station of that year, before the 1841 station was completed. Again, according to the listing text, this makes it "one of the earliest surviving purpose-built railway structures in the country." However, it was "altered and refitted in late nineteenth century, and, more recently, a plate which recorded the manufacturer and date was removed. Still, we do know that the cast-iron tank was manufactured by the Walker Foundry of Walmgate, York, and that the building would originally have faced the railway line.
Left: Former locomotive workshop. Right: Closer view of one bay of the building.
Two large locomotive workshop buildings also survive, probably related to the present 1877 station completed in 1877. They dwarf the building with the water-tank.
Left: The Former Railway Institute. Right: The former institute in close proximity to the workshops.
Another, more striking brick-built building is the York Railway Institute on Queen Street itself, established by Henry Tennant (General Manager of the North Eastern Railway, 1871-1891), on the site of the old Railway Tavern in 1889. This was suitably close to the locomotive and carriage works: it is very noticeable here that workshop windows were "made up of rows of separate small panes set in vertical glazing bars, a typical feature of smithies or other workshops, where broken windows were a common hazard, small panes being cheaper and easier to replace" (Pevsner and Neave 640). As well as providing refreshment and recreation, the institute, like Mechanics' Institutes generally, served an educational function. It continues in something of that tradition today, as a Sports Centre.
Photographs (2023) by the author. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Links to Related Material
Bibliography
Pevsner, Nikolaus, and David Neave. Yorkshire: York and the East Riding. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
"The Railway Institute, York. History of York. Web. 16 February 2023.
York and North Midland Railway Company Workshops and Water Tank at NGR SE 5951 5144. Historic England. Web. 16 February 2023.
Created 16 February 2023