The Darlington Railway Preservation Society, which manages Head of Steam at the 1861 Goods Shed, at North Road Station, Station Road, Darlington, submitted the plans as part of ongoing, extensive works at the site.
The works mainly refer to eaves-level stonework to all four elevations, which has been found to be in much poorer state than originally thought.
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The Goods Shed was constructed as a railway merchants station in 1883 with various phases of development taking place up until the 1960s.
The works propose four approaches to the various conditions of the eaves stonework, which are:
- Retention of stonework found to be sound and firmly bedded.
- Stabilisation of stonework in situ through diagonal stainless steel dowels and resin between individual neighbouring stones.
- Careful removal of stones which are not firmly bedded, to allow for addition of new sandstone to the rear to form a full composite stone prior to reinstatement.
- Removal of stones determined to be beyond repair, and replacement with new stone to match existing.
The use of resin together with stainless steel dowels when adding new stone to existing will have some impact on stonework in terms of moisture movement.
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However, proposals for new vapour permeable finishes to the interior and lime mortar repointing to the exterior, coupled with new roofing, will minimise the risks of water being trapped within the repaired high-level stonework.
The stones identified are to be carefully removed from site and prepared by carefully cutting the back edge of the stones, taking care to remove the minimum amount of stone as necessary, to enable a connection to be made with a new backing stone. The new backing stones will be cut to bespoke sizes to match the overall width of the existing wall, when joined to the old stones.
The new stones and old stones will be connected together by match drilling holes in both pieces of stones and joining the two pieces together with resin and stainless steel dowel bars, two dowel bars per stone.