This Hidden Railway Building Is One Of The Oldest In The World

You can find one of the oldest railway buildings to survive in the world and potentially the earliest of its kind in existence but it's hiding away next to the impressive York Railway Station. To find it you have to approach the current station, the current railway station at York, from Queen Street and take a left down towards the car park on the sidings. You walk past a bunch of old buildings, rail buildings, for 30 seconds or so but then you'll come across the oldest of them all. This is it, this is actually a cast iron water tanker and workshop dating all the way back to 1839. To give a bit of understanding to this building you need to know about the history of York Railway Station. So the current station, if you've been to York you'll have used this one, the Cathedral of Rail is sometimes known because it is a beauty and it certainly is old. Though old it was not the first in the city. This one that you see was completed in 1877 so still a long time ago but before this the station known as the first proper railway station in York opened in 1841 inside the city walls. If you didn't take the exit on Queen Street when we were walking down and you walked further towards the station you would find these archways where the medieval walls were cut through for the first station. It had one platform for arrivals and one platform for departures. This station was great until it wasn't. It had outgrown the space and become a bottleneck on the railway line. That's why this new station was built in 1877 so trains could pass straight through on the journey from London to Edinburgh. But even before the first station was built and then replaced there was something else. In fact it was whilst the first station of 1841 was being built that this old structure here, the topic of this video, was erected. If you go around what we would class as the back of this building, not the back, this was actually the front and you can see it lines up perfectly with where the archways are on the walls that I showed you a minute ago. That's because the track actually came through here towards the archways in the walls as this building here was the temporary station built in 1839. By the way the large workshop buildings around here around this building likely relate to the current station era around 1877. The largest of them all between the old temporary station and the current station not many people know is actually a shooting range for the Railway Institute Rifle Club. But going back to the temporary station it is three bayed the ground floor supposedly stored coke for the refueling trains and on top of that is a 5,000 gallon water tanker and the attached building next to it was a workshop. The building was altered and refitted in the late 19th century but on the City of York Council's official website they claim the cast iron water tank may therefore be one of the earliest if not the earliest such tank in existence. Quick side note the doors around the rear of the building are not the originals they are newer additions though they do still look quite old. Now the building was designed by G.T. Andrews who is the architect behind many stations in the north a lot of the early stations for the York and North Midland Railway Company and the tank was manufactured by the Walker Foundry of Wormgate in York so one of our very own. The Walker Foundry were a very notable foundry they supplied a lot of the lamps outside York Minster and also the railings outside the British Museum in London. Being built in 1839 this makes it one of the oldest purpose-built railway buildings in the country just 14 years after the Stockton and Darlington line was opened which was the first public railway in the world. Also as it was obviously 1839 that makes it before the rail route from Edinburgh to London was even complete after the Edinburgh to Glasgow line opened on the But what about the use of the building since it was built because of course been a long time since it was actually used for its intended purpose. Well over the years it's been home to many things a foundry a foreman's office and into the late 19th century it was a coppersmith's workshop. You can't actually go into the building now I don't think anyway not public but on the wall you can see the logo of a gym. I reached out to the owner and he very kindly said gym hasn't actually been there for years now it's not been opened and the building does appear to have fallen into somewhat state of disrepair but in January 2025 it's currently October 2025 in January local media claimed the building would be given a new lease of life so they said and the York Railway Institute band would convert it into practice space. As of other reports in early April the City of York Council had apparently given these plans the green light now whether they have moved in or not I'm honestly not too sure it really doesn't look like it to be honest but that is where we are with this historic building which if you've visited York you've almost certainly never even been to or noticed but it's a massive part of our history and the history of Britain as a whole so thank you all so much for sticking around for the whole video please do comment below if you think I can do different this is only my third video listening to all feedback so if you think there's any styles presentation anything you want differently please do let me know when I do listen to it all and please subscribe for more videos like these I'm aiming to go around the whole of Britain showing off some of the hidden heritage that people really should know about