Hawthorn Works, South Street

This building was listed Grade II in 2002 with the following description:
'Former Railway engineering works, now builders merchant's. 1845-58, with later alterations. Red brick with slate and glass roofs. Two long parallel engineering sheds, now partly subsumed within a late C20 shed with steel cladding. West facade has many blind brick arches, and the south facade has a blind circular opening in the gable. INTERIOR has many exposed roof trusses to each shed with queen-post trusses. Between the two sheds is an iron arcade supporting a timber section with diagonal braces. These iron columns have arched braces for extra-support. This iron arcade and the timber and brick corresponding arcade on the west shed presumably supported some form of mobile crane. HISTORY. The brothers Robert and William Hawthorn established an engineering works in the vicinity of Forth Banks in 1820, and after a fire in 1844 these new sheds were built on this new site for the construction of railway locomotives. The company eventually amalgamated with Robert Stephenson & Co in 1937, though the construction of railway engines had ceased on this site in c. 1900.' LISTED GRADE 2