Highland Railway Buildings

Highland Railway Buildings

Published in conjunction with the Highland Railway Society. The Highland Railway and its constituents erected many buildings, from humble platelayers’ huts, through stations, goods and engine sheds, signal boxes and staff houses, to grand Edwardian hotels. This volume sets out to study these and also explains how they were influenced by such factors as the construction materials available locally, the financial situation of the company erecting them and the social status of the local landowner. Over 300 photographs, drawings and plans are herein used to illustrate that, whilst the HR’s houses reflected those built on farms in the region, the larger stations showed the influence of then current architectural styles. One chapter covers the significant buildings erected by the Company in Inverness and here, as elsewhere in the Highlands, the surviving structures make an important contribution to the architectural heritage of the region. Neil Sinclair’s family’s links with the Highland Railway began when the last section of the main line was built through his grandfather’s farm in Inverness-shire at the end of the 19th century. He has written several books on the HR and has a particular interest in its buildings, dating back to photographs he took of stations in the late 1950s. Neil spent his working life in museums, mainly in Tyne & Wear, where his responsibilities included the architecturally outstanding Monkwearmouth Station Museum.