Monument record MDR5679 - Railway Sheet Stores, Long Eaton

SK 488321. Railway Sheet Stores. Best seen from the train, this was established 1845 onwards, first as a coke warehouse, then for the manufacture of the tarpaulin sheets required in large numbers to cover goods in open wagons. Interesting developments of ventilation can be seen, from open top-storey windows to vented lantern roofs. There are a variety of fancy cast-iron windows. The site includes a large dock on the Erewash Canal. (1) SK 487321 Midland Railway Sheet Stores. Built 1840 as canal/railway interchange and coke store. Expanded as a tarpaulin and sack manufactory for Midland Railway. Basin, coke store and manager's house of 1840 survive with large warehouse and dressing shops of 1840-1899. Now an industrial estate and marina. (3). The site was originally constructed by the Midland Counties Railway in 1840 as a railway/canal interchange facility and coke store. From 1854 to 1963 it operated as a factory manufacturing, repairing and storing tarpaulins (wagon sheets). Grain sacks, straw pads and ropes were also handled. At its peak in around 1900 over 200 people were employed. The site was sold by British Railways in 1966 and has since been operated as an industrial estate with space in the buildings let to tenants in a wide range of industries. The canal basin and most of the buildings survive with many architectural details intact. These buildings include the manager's house, sheet dressing shop, sack stores (mainly destroyed by fire), sheet manufacturing and repair shop, boiler house, coke store (later sheet store), and canteen. In addition the foundations of the sheet drying shop survive and include in the floor part of the 18 inch gauge railway which ran between some of the buildings. (4). Further investigation has been carried out of the earliest history of the site as a Coke Store, together with a survey of the canal basin, the former manager's house and the former Coke Store building itself. The house appears to have undergone little external change since it was constructed in 1840; however the Coke Store has experienced considerable changes, for example the blocking up of doorways and the entrance arches from the canal and the insertion of later windows to give more light when the building was being used as a Sheet Store. However, it still retains a number of original features, and is an important and unusual survival from the early days of the national railway system. (5) Building 6 is a coke store, built in 1840. Designed by Thomas Jackson Woodhouse for the Midland Counties Railway. Converted to a sheet store by the Midland Railway Company in 1854. Damaged by fire in 1855 and subsequently reconstructed. The coke store is built of red brick on a stone basement, beneath a corrugated sheet roof. There are seven bays of small window openings with segmental heads. The coke store appears in Nixon's Industrial Archaeology of Derbyshire and Palmer's Industrial Landscapes of the East Midlands. Building 1 is a manager's house, built in 1840 for the Midland Counties Railway. It is faced in smooth render with projecting eaves beneath a shallow pitched slate roof. The front elevation is of two storeys, separated by a sill band. There is a central entrance door beneath a corbelled porch. The manager's house appears in Nixon's Industrial Archaeology of Derbyshire. (6)