Transforming a Historic Market Town

Introduction

Located high on a plateau overlooking the picturesque Weardale valley within County Durham, Bishop Auckland is perhaps best known for Auckland Palace, the former chief residence of the Bishops of Durham. The town has a rich and varied architectural legacy, much of which was shaped by the railways.

Parson and White describe Bishop Auckland in their 1827 Directory as having a ‘very neat and clean appearance... in an airy and healthy situation’, with its centre focused on the market place in front of the Bishop’s Castle (or Palace) surrounded by plenty of inns and hostelries with coaches to Lancaster, Durham and Newcastle to name but a few. While the bishop’s residence attracted wealthy residents including clergy, doctors and solicitors, there were a variety of craftsmen and traders such as shopkeepers, straw hat makers, butchers, blacksmiths, linen drapers and watchmakers. Industry was minimal and on a small, often domestic, scale.

The first railway to reach the town was the Bishop Auckland and Weardale in 1842, but within 50 years it had been joined by three others, making the town a busy transport hub. The railways were built principally to transport coal from the local coalfield. In 1838 there were 14 coal pits within 3 miles of the town, but by the early 20th century this had increased to 40 within 5 miles. The railways transported not just vast quantities of freight but also passengers, and transformed the landscape with their embankments, cuttings, bridges and viaducts many of which remain today.

The construction and development of the railway lines

The Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway was constructed to enable the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company to profit from the coal reserves around Crook and Howden-le-Wear to the north-west of the town. Overseen by the formidable engineer Thomas Storey (1789-1859), a relative and former employee of George Stephenson (1781-1848), the line, running north from New Shildon, began construction in 1837. It took five years to reach Bishop Auckland mainly due to the massive feats of engineering required to construct the Shildon Tunnel (also known as the Prince of Wales Tunnel) through a 500-foot (approx 152 metres) high magnesian limestone ridge, and lay the 0.8 kilometre-long Holdforth Embankment across the River Guinness.

The line skirted the south side of Bishop Auckland with sidings to the goods station . Within a few years, new industries had been established in close proximity including brick and tile works and gas works. While evidence of these industries has now gone, the railway still serves the town, with a modern (1980s) station, while the line westwards (extended to Wearhead in 1895) continues to operate as the Weardale Railway, a successful heritage railway.

In 1854 construction began of a new railway connecting Bishop Auckland with Durham to the east. This railway, the Bishop Auckland and Durham Branch, was built by the North Eastern Railway and was completed in 1857. It approached the town from the north and joined the existing Bishop Auckland and Weardale line on the west side of the town. This major line had a significant? impact on the layout and fabric of the town, requiring a cutting through the western edge of the town centre with a tunnel at High Bondgate, a bridge to carry the line at Princes Street and a bridge to carry Tenters Street over it (all now demolished).

The massive Newton Cap Viaduct, measuring 828 feet (252 metres) long with 11 arches, each with a span of 60 feet (18 metres), took the Durham branch line across the valley of the River Wear north of the town.

The branch closed to passenger trains in 1964 and to freight in 1968. The viaduct, however, was saved from demolition and converted to a road bridge in 1993 (the first former rail bridge to be converted to road use in England), and remains a significant and impressive landmark within the landscape. Close to its south end, stand two pairs of good quality back-to-back houses, built of brick with stone dressings by the railway company to house its workers in the mid-19th century.

In 1863, the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway line was extended to Bishop Auckland enabling the transportation of coke from the Durham coalfield westwards to the ironworks of Cumbria and of iron ore from Cumbria to Teesside and Consett, major centres of steel production. Finally, the fourth line to be introduced was the Bishop Auckland and Spennymoor Branch Railway in 1885, extending the Byers Green Branch of the Clarence Railway and passing to the east of the town through Auckland Park, much to the concern of J. B. Lightfoot, the incumbent bishop, who was worried about the views from his windows. Despite his concerns, Bishop Auckland had become an important transport hub by the end of the 19th century.

Stations and works

With such a vast transport network, a suitably sized goods station was required to handle freight. A small goods station was constructed near to a new railway station (rebuilt in about 1857 to accommodate the two main lines, replaced in the 1960s and again in the 1980s) and is shown on the 1857 map (see first image above), and this was expanded later in the 19th century. It was located at the western side of South Road (now Newgate Street) and accommodated cranes, sheds, a weighing machine and a towering signal box. All have since gone and the site is now a supermarket car park.

Industries and businesses gravitated to this transport hub . One of the largest and most successful was Lingford and Gardiner and Company who acquired a plot of land between Railway Street and Chester Street in 1856. The company was formed by Samuel Lingford and brothers George and John Gardiner in 1861 and specialised in the repair and manufacture of locomotives, colliery hauling and winding engines, boilers and other fittings and parts.

Over the course of 50 years, the works developed to cover a 1.6 hectare site with its own railway spur and level crossing. A new lathe shop, smith’s shop and foundry were proposed in 1868. Some of the single-storey brick workshops survive along the south side of Railway Street, and a taller building with central entrance survives to the north, perhaps the former main entrance and administrative building.

The complex had expanded massively by 1894 with a series of iron and brass foundries and shops for creating patterns, boilers and engines. The company remained operational until 1931 when the neighbouring engineering firm Robert Wilson and Sons (established in 1842) acquired some of the business and premises. The surviving buildings are today occupied by other small businesses, maintaining the strong industrial character of the area.

Impact on the wider town

The location of the railway and industry to the south of the old town centre prompted the development of a new residential suburb. Intermixed with the factories and workshops were rows of terraced houses built from the 1840s onwards; these created a bustling and vibrant neighbourhood character that survives today. One of the earliest streets was built by the engineer Thomas Storey and named Flintoff Street after his married daughter, Hannah.

Older parts of the town were also affected by the rapid industrial development with an increase in population, which led to overcrowding and maximizing building plots with smaller houses and lodging houses. Gradually, as Bishop Auckland became more prosperous and began to also attract professional workers and investors through the late 19th century, larger terraced houses were constructed along with banks, shops and institutional and recreational buildings. This prosperity was largely driven by the railways and the industries it generated.

Bishop Auckland adapts to post-industrial life

Conversely, with the decline of industry in the early 20th century, compounded by the economic depression of the 1930s and the Second World War, the town suffered a period of hardship with high levels of unemployment and poor living conditions. Bishop Auckland shared in the opening up of the Durham coalfield, but only fragments of the historic railway and industrial fabric have survived. However, it is still evident, actually or vestigially, in, for example, the route of modern roads (on former railway lines), the street pattern of industrial housing, and, by association, in the commercial and institutional buildings which transformed the town after the arrival of the railways.

Bishop Auckland has continually reinvented itself, most recently as a heritage and culture hotspot with museums and galleries, restaurants, cafes and shops, bolstered by the Heritage Action Zone, a government-sponsored initiative which took place between 2018 and 2023 to target growth in historic places. The great heritage highlight, of course, is the Bishop’s Palace, but much of what we see today in the town is explained by coal and the railway.

Further information

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