Monument record BSE 228 - Northgate Railway Complex

Northgate railway complex including a Goods Shed, an Engine Shed and a Coal Yard is visible on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map (S1). The complex was presumably constructed after the Station was built in 1847 (BSE 506). The goods shed has been demolished but some tracks remain from the area of the coal yard.


The mid-late 19th century coal yard is located to the north of the former malting (See BSE 255). From cartographic and other historic evidence it was established that the site would have formed part of a large industrial site to the south of Northgate station, at the time mostly occupied by coal yards and good sheds. It was served by three separate railway tracks and linked with a plot of land to the southeast of it, fronting onto Northgate and Tayfen Road. The buildings on the site originally comprised industrial warehouses and open-sided sheds, as well as a small office building. Apart from the office, none of these buildings survived. Coal Yard is marked on 1886, 1904, 1926 and 1965 OS map along with the malthouse. See also photo of the area c.1880 (S2).

(The coal yard was previously numbered as BSE 255.)

Archaeological evaluation, consisting of nine trial trenches distributed across a c.1ha site, was carried out in advance of residential redevelopment. Two trenches in the S of the site exposed mid- to late 19th-century foundations of two adjoining railway buildings shown on the 1886 and later Ordnance Survey maps. The S of these may have been an engine shed or workshop and was still standing in 1965 when this part of the site was used as a builder’s yard. Evidence was found for the terracing of the N and S slopes of the hill during the period of railway construction, while the hilltop had also been subject to disturbance/removal of any soil horizons predating the mid-19th century. The natural downward slope in the N part of the site had been enhanced by a cutting for railway sidings associated with a former coalyard and ‘sand drag’ shown on late 19th- and 20th-century Ordnance Survey maps. A sand drag, also called a ‘safety siding’ or ‘arrestor bed’, is part of a track arrangement used to safely stop rail vehicles that are travelling at speed, particularly where they are out of control on a steep gradient, or to prevent unauthorized vehicles from leaving sidings and joining the main railway line (S3).