The Archaeology of the Rural Railway Warehouse in North-West England

This article studies in detail two rural railway warehouses of the mid-19th century from North-West England. Structures such as these were an integral part of the branch lines and secondary lines that developed across the network during the mid-to late 19th century. The two warehouses recorded here each reflected the needs of the railway company. The warehouse at Delph was a multi-purpose structure, whilst the Summerseat warehouse appears to have been a small cotton warehouse and was notable as surviving almost completely intact. Both represent the Victorian approach to industrialised transhipment and redistribution brought about by the railways. They also demonstrate how vulnerable such structures are to early 21st-century redevelopment pressure.