Pub is honoured with listing to mark 200 years of S&D railway

A LANDLORD is delighted after his Eaglescliffe pub was listed by the Government to mark 200 years since opening of Stockton and Darlington Railway.

- By FELICITY COLLINSON Reporter

The Cleveland Bay pub in Eaglescliffe is one of seven new listings announced to mark the milestone anniversary of the railway that was launched on September 27, 1825.

The building, listed at Grade II, is the earliest identified pub in the world to be built specifically in association with a railway line.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport decided to list - and ultimately protect the pub - on the advice of Historic England in celebration of the birth of modern passenger railway services which ultimately transformed the world.

Peter Rafferty, 67, who has been landlord at the pub for 32 years alongside his partner Barbara Caygill, said: "We're over the moon about it.

"It's been here over 200 years and now it's listed it means it will be here another 200 years.

"It can't be knocked down or altered so it's got a nice long future ahead and we're delighted."

The Cleveland Bay was built for the chairman of the Stockton and Darlington Railway for the opening of the railway's Yarm branch line in 1825.

It is a prototype railway station, predating the railway's own public houses, which saw the early development of the concept of the railway station.