Hopetown Darlington & Shildon Railway Museum

Enjoy an excursion with a morning visit to the brand new Hopetown Museum in Darlington

Hopetown Darlington is a visitor attraction where every building has a unique story to tell.

Enter through the 1833 Goods Shed where there’s now an artisan café, coal themed shop and a new railway-themed digital media experience. Visit North Road Station Museum, housed within an 1842 Victorian railway station, to discover Darlington’s story of rail engineering, ideas and invention. In the 1853 Carriage Works, you’ll find the Exhibition Hall, featuring special exhibitions, and The Stores, where you can explore our archive and 30,000 railway artefacts on permanent display.

 

In the brand-new, purpose-built Darlington Locomotive Works (home to the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust) you’ll have the chance to view live engineering in action by watching the construction of the UK’s newest steam locomotive, the P2 Class No.2007 Prince of Wales.

Outside, there’s Wagon Woods, a railway-themed adventure play park that builds on the story of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (There is a £5.00 charge for the play area)

Hopetown Wagon Woods Play Area is for children Ages 1 - 12 only

 

 

 

We then continue onto Shildon Railway museum for the afternoon -The museum is arranged as stops along the 1-kilometre (0.6 mi) demonstration line with station direction board signs and information points on the trail between the car parks and the main collection building. The museum has a six-spur apron in front of the main shed and another short length of track for showing off resident locomotives and visiting trains.

The trail starts at the 19th-century welcome building. The original  Sans Pareill was previously on display here (It has since been moved to the Collection Building). The second building is Timothy Hackworthh's house.   It contains several activities about the history of Shildon. Soho is a stone building that was a railway workshop, having originally been an iron merchant's store. The fourth stop is the former goods shed for the town, with most incoming and outgoing goods being delivered to the railway by horse and cart. The building is built partially from recycled stone sleeper blocks, the old fixing slots being visible in the wall.

The railway station's parcel office is the next part of the trail and at the junction, visible across the tracks are the former stables for the early horse-drawn wagonways that linked to the line. The coal dropss were a refuelling point for steam locomotives. Wagons were hauled up an incline and the coal 'dropped' down wooden chutes into the tender below.

The trail passes under the roadway. There is a children's playground and a picnic area outside the Collection building. The trail ends at the largest building in the museum. It contains the exhibition hall and a conservation workshop with viewing gallery to see the work carried out by volunteers restoring some of the exhibits. Other facilities in the building include interactive games, a cafe and shop.