Summary
Standing, earthwork and buried remains forming the summit and upper 0.6-0.7km lengths of the northern and southern Etherley Inclines forming part of George Stephenson’s 1825 main line for the Stockton & Darlington Railway.
Reasons for Designation
The Stockton & Darlington Railway: Etherley Inclines, summit and upper sections, is included on the Schedule for the following principal reasons:
* Period: part of the internationally influential and pioneering railway that opened in 1825, engineered by George Stephenson, popularly known as the ‘Father of the Railways’;
* Documentation: importance is enhanced by the survival of early-C19 documentation, including the notes and sketches made by John Rastrick in 1829;
* Survival: includes well-preserved, substantial earthworks of the inclines, along with associated features such as culverts and boundary walls, these walls also encompassing the arrangement at the summit;
* Group value: particularly with the lower sections of the two inclines, but also with the Brusselton Incline to the south-east.
History
Although the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR), opened 1825, is most famous for its pioneering use of steam locomotives, until the opening of the Shildon tunnel in 1842, these were only used from Shildon eastwards. To the west of Shildon, the main line consisted of two pairs of inclines to go over the Brusselton and Etherley ridges, linked by a short, level section which was horse-hauled to cross the Gaunless river valley. In this respect the S&DR employed and built-on the technology developed by various colliery railways and wagonways around Tyneside. Through the S&DR’s policy of sharing information with visiting engineers and railway promoters, the railway came to significantly influence the development of other early railways both in England and abroad. Many railways built in the 1820s and 1830s also used rope-hauled inclines combined with steam locomotives, many of which were designed by the S&DR’s Chief Engineer, George Stephenson (1781-1848) who became popularly regarded as ‘the Father of the Railways’. However, credit is also due to Timothy Hackworth (1786-1850), the S&DR’s Superintendent of Locomotives, the railway’s resident engineer, who not only hosted visiting engineers, but also made many alterations and improvements to both locomotives and the inclines.
The earliest documented railways in England, the early C17 timber-railed wagonways in Shropshire, appear to have included at least one self-acting incline (also termed a gravity incline): this operated by using the weight of descending full wagons to haul empty wagons to the summit. Clearly such a system was only workable where loads only needed to be transported downhill. Two centuries later, bi-directional inclines became practical with the application of steam power, using stationary engines housed in engine houses to haul wagons up inclines, the earliest being the Lancaster Canal tramroad near Preston of 1803, followed in 1805 by the Black Fell incline near Birtley, Co. Durham. Stephenson’s design for the S&DR’s Brusselton Incline appears to have been the first instance whereby a single stationary engine was designed to serve two inclines to allow a railway to cross a ridge. By the 1840s, steam locomotive design and railway engineering had improved to the extent that new routes were built without the need for rope-hauled inclines, although many existing inclines continued to be operated, some persisting into the second half of the C20, with electrical haulage engines replacing steam.
The Etherley Ridge was the northern of two ridges that Stephenson crossed via engineered inclines. As initially designed, the northern incline of 1,109 yards (1014m) at a 1 in 33 gradient was hauled by a twin cylindered condensing steam engine sited in an engine house at the summit, the engine, designed by Stephenson’s son Robert (1803-1859), built at their works at Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. The longer southern incline of 2,185 yards (1998m) at a 1 in 30.75 gradient, descending down to the River Gaunless, was originally designed to be self-acting: the weight of the loaded chaldrons (coal wagons) being used to haul empty wagons up the incline. However Hackworth modified the haulage arrangement so that both inclines were worked together so that the weight of the descending train on one incline assisted the steam engine hauling the train up the other incline, the differing lengths of the two inclines being accommodated by having the ropes wound on winding drums of different diameters. This was a novel arrangement and was sketched and described by the engineer John Rastrick (1780-1856) when he visited in January 1829 as part of his research for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway then still under construction.
The inclines, and the arrangement at the summit, are all shown on the Dixon plan of 1840: this depicts a single line descending each incline, the rectangular enclosure at the summit having a passing loop. The engine house was on the west side of the lines, a smaller building being shown between the lines considered to be a bearing for the winding drums. To the north-west of the engine house two circular ponds are shown, these being spring fed via a leat to the west, supplying water for the steam engine boilers.
To the south of the ponds, a second large building is also shown with a pair of small outbuildings and two garden enclosures. This was a pair of cottages for the engineman and a blacksmith/fireman. From 1826 the engineman was John Greener, who took over from his brother Thomas. John Greener was killed at the Etherley engine house in February 1843 when he accidentally fell under one of the beams of the steam engine when it was in motion. This accident is thought to have precipitated the abandonment of the Etherley inclines, this section of the S&DR effectively being bypassed by the opening of the Bishop Auckland & Weardale Railway to the east in November 1843. The first edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed 1857, shows that the track had been lifted, although the inclines were only officially closed on 13 October 1858, the steam engine being offered for sale the following July. The cottages remained occupied into the mid-C20: Ordnance Survey maps show both the engine house and cottages as surviving into the 1970s, C20 photos showing them as originally being similar in design and construction to those at Brusselton, however the buildings were condemned by the local authority and were demolished in around 1980.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: the site of the engine house and associated structures at the summit of the Etherley inclined planes, one of the ponds surviving as a functioning structure, still holding water, the rest mainly surviving as buried archaeological remains. Extending to the north and south, the area also includes the upper sections of the two inclined planes surviving as substantial earthworks, embankments and cuttings. The area includes at least one stone-built culvert, along with extensive lengths of 1825 boundary walls, these being largely drystone, some sections standing to full height.
DESCRIPTION: the site of the engine house and the pair of workers’ cottages lie within a largely walled enclosure, with the inclines descending to the north-north-west and south-east. Ground within this enclosure is largely level, except for a slight depression marking the northern pond, the southern pond still holding water, fed via a leat that extends about 200m to the west of the monument. This enclosure is drystone walled, the walling including some architectural stone thought to have originated from the demolished buildings. The gateway on the west side is shown on the 1840 Dixon plan.
The monument includes the northern incline down to the road through Low Etherley. This mainly takes the form of a cutting, the track bed being around 4-5m wide with a shallow drainage culvert on its western side. In places there are exposed sleeper stones, others are considered to remain buried. Along this section of the line, the original ownership boundaries of the S&DR were marked with stone walls, mostly now ruinous except where rebuilt as garden walls. Around 200m of the cutting is widened out on the eastern side, this thought to have been a quarry for material used to construct the embanked section of the incline over Belts Gill to the north. At the southern end of this widened section there is a constructed ramp marking the position of an original level crossing of the line, now forming a public right of way.
The monument also includes the southern incline down to Greenfields Road. This part of the southern incline is mainly in the form of a substantial earthwork embankment up to 25m across at the base and up to 5-6m high. Close to Greenfields Road, the embankment includes an intact stone-built arched culvert for a stream that flows north-eastwards.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: this includes the full extent of the inclines between Low Etherley Road and Greenfields Road to include the full extent of the earthworks as well as the walled boundaries of the line. For most of these boundaries, there are modern fence lines that are immediately outside the monument. At the northern end, the monument includes stone garden walls which have undergone varying degrees of rebuilding. Originally the railway passed under a humpbacked bridge carrying Low Etherley Road. This bridge was infilled or demolished in the C20. As its degree of survival is unknown, it has not been included in the scheduling. At the southern end, the line was crossed by Greenfields Road via a level crossing. Again, survival of features relating to this crossing is unknown and it is not included in the scheduling.
Further extensive remains of the original 1825 main line of the S&DR are included in separate scheduled monuments.
EXCLUSIONS: all fence, gate and signposts, interpretation panels and their supports, litter bins and other street furniture such as benches are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.
