750/0/10039 Carriage Shop, Newtown Railway Works 18-SEP-01 GV II Railway carriage works, later sawmill. Built between 1858-1871, and extended, with the water tower added, in c1898, all for the South Eastern Railway. Two parallel gabled red brick ranges with stone quoin pilasters and modern steel sheet roofs, the water tower roof is probably leaded. The original block was a brick building of 21 bays with tall rubbed brick round headed arches separated by pilasters. On the north elevation the sixteenth bay from the west has a wide opening. The building has a double pitch roof. In c1898 the Carriage Shop, by now a sawmill, was extended to the south-east by a narrower five bay range half the width of the original. The extension continues the exterior arched arrangement of the former block. At the same time a tall four-storey water tower was added in an Italianate style. This square tower has a door in the north-east re-entrant angle and has square headed windows on its ground, first and second levels. The third storey has round headed windows with a central keystone, rendered quoins in imitation of masonry, and moulded corbelling below the eaves, low pitch pyramid roof. The south-east gables have been closed in brick in the 1990s; each has two arched windows. The north-west gables still have the openings to access the internal roads. Interior: This was only partly seen (July 1998). The original building is framed internally by pairs of timber trusses supported in the centre by fairly thick and squat cast iron columns. The trusses have queen posts with princess rods and metal straps. The extension block has almost matching trusses. The open spaces between the central cast iron columns have been infilled with breeze blocks. History: The original building appears first on the OS map of 1871 and was built as a carriage shop by the South Eastern Railway. By the time it was extended in c1898 it had become a sawmill and a water tower was added. The Railway Magazine of 1898 says that this was the only railway workshop of this kind in England to be fitted with completely automatic fire extinguishing apparatus. By the 1980s it was used as a wheel shop by B.R.E.L. and in 1998 it was being used by Balfour Beatty, once again as a carriage repair shop. Reason for listing: Apart from the replacement of the roof covering it is one of the least altered of all the early buildings at Ashford Works and the only one in a near original use. Reference: RCHME, The Railway Works, Ashford, Kent, 1990. Listing NGR: TR0181941635