The Navvy Hut Then and Now

This map was published in 1899 and shows our navvy hut in situ at the railway yard at Appleby, more or less dead centre, the lower of the two rectangles alongside the N.E.R. Eden Valley Branch.   Up to now, 1911 was the earliest map we had.

The two photographs which follow were taken in 1972 by Peter W Robinson.   They show the hut was in a pretty iffy state 40 years ago!   

 

In the picture above, note the varying lengths at the bottoms of the cladding boards on the southern gable.   This, with other evidence like unused bolt holes, suggests that the hut was rebuilt here at Appleby rather than having been a new build in that location.   We can see that skylights have been fitted to both slopes of the roof.   Otherwise the small and few windows would have made the building very dark indeed.   It was these skylights that had eventually failed, letting in the weather and resulting in at least two of the roof trusses rotting.
 

This final picture is by Network Rail's Ian Ambrose and shows the hut rebuilt at the water tower at Settle.   The red doors are the very doors from the original hut in the black and white picture above.