TTHE company of Shaw and Knight appears to have been in operation from the start of the 20th Century into the 1960s. Its factory, situated where the Romanway industrial estate now is, was a Bishop Auckland landmark because its four tall chimneys stood beside the railway line.

Sylvia Baker, in Darlington, remembers many happy days in the signalbox in the shadow of the four chimneys.

“My father, George Robson, worked in the Fylands Bridge box, as it was known, and when I was small I used to go with him and watch the men loading the kilns in Shaw and Knight’s,” she says. “I have many happy memories of sitting in the signal cabin taking engine numbers which was a favourite pastime in the 1950s. I also remember the engine sheds, where we used to live in the railway houses in Dent Street.”

The front cover picture of Memories 118 was taken at the West Auckland engine sheds, and was kindly sent in by Chris Nettleton, of The Gresley Society. It showed the four chimneys – and if you have a magnifying glass, on the oblique angle of the lefthand chimney, just beneath the jutting out bricks, you can see the letters S&K in white.

The picture was taken in June 1963. The sheds closed, post-Beeching, in 1964, and Peter Singlehurst has been using maps and old photographs to work out when the chimneys came down.

“It seems to have taken a long time to demolish them,”

he reports. “All four chimneys were standing in May 1968 but only two were still standing by March 1970.

By May 1976 only one was left and it was still there two months later in July. It must have been felled shortly after.”

The Northern Echo: The four Shaw and Knight chimneys from the West Auckland engine shed
The four Shaw and Knight chimneys from the West Auckland engine shed