ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE

ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE, STATION ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1385232
Date first listed:: 05-Oct-2000
List Entry Name:: ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE
Statutory Address:: ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE, STATION ROAD

User submitted image — Uploaded by Simon Jones This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1385232
Date first listed:: 05-Oct-2000
List Entry Name:: ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE
Statutory Address 1:: ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE, STATION ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: ENGINE SHED GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY HERITAGE CENTRE, STATION ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Oxfordshire
District:: South Oxfordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Didcot
National Grid Reference:: SU 52418 90798

Details

DIDCOT

SU5290 STATION ROAD

1703/12/10002 Engine shed, Great Western Railway 05-OCT-00 Heritage Centre

GV II

Railway engine shed. 1931 for the Great Western Railway. Brown brick, asbestos sheet and steel. Rectangular plan four-road engine shed 64.0m by 20.4m to accommodate some sixteen locomotives. Steel frame with brown brick lower walls and a corrugated asbestos sheet cladding to eastern upper wall. Corrugated iron roof cladding, which is not original, over timber boards. Two gable north and south entrances with three pairs and four pairs of hinged timber doors respectively. Two roads in each gable with inspection pits outside the south entrance of the shed and an iron water crane central to each pair of roads about 30m outside the shed. The gables are clad in sheeting. The lower east wall is plain brick, the upper wall is clad in sheeting with twenty-one steel-framed windows. The west wall is plain brick and is abutted by a range of plain brick lean-to offices and workshops accessed individually from the engine shed with seventeen steel frame and three timber sash windows with reinforced concrete heads and cills under a timber boarded and slated roof. The westernmost road through the engine shed connects with the adjoining 1931 repair/lifting shop (qv). The roof is part glazed, with walkways and tall exhaust vents. Interior: has an open light steel truss roof with smoke catchers over the roads. Inspection pits through length of roads. The oil store has an original range of oil tanks. History: Didcot engine shed forms part of a depot for the stabling, servicing and day-to-day mechanical repair of steam locomotives. It was built as one of the government funded improvements to the GWR in the 1930s under the Development (Loans, Guarantees and Grants Act (1929), which was designed to provide employment in the Depression. It has been little altered and is now the only medium sized steam running shed in England still in use for its original purpose. The shed was closed by British Rail in June 1965 but continues in use by the Great Western Society. References: Paul Bolger, BR Steam Motive Power Depots WR, Ian Allan, 1983, p 14. Adrian Vaughan, A Pictorial Record of Great Western Architecture, OPC, 1977, pl 467 for drawing of GWR standard running shed 1932, and pl 475 for standard water column. Chris Hawkins and George Reeve, Great Western railway London Division Engine Sheds, Wild Swan Publications, 1987, pp 278-290. E T Lyons, An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947, Oxford Publishing Company, 1972, p 19 and p 70. Information from Michael Dean, Chief Executive, Great Western Society.

Listing NGR: SU5241790808

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 485694
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Bolger, P, BR Steam Motive Power Depots, (1983), 14
Hawkins, , Reeve, , Great Western Railway: London Division Engine Sheds, (1987), 278-290
Lyons, E T, An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947, (1972), 19, 70
Vaughan, A, A Pictorial Record of Great Western Architecture, (1977)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.