Brusselton developed as a railway village around the summit of the Brusselton Inclines with its stationary engine house built for the opening of the S&DR which started in 1825.

Houses that were built by the S&DR were all marked with black plaques marked with a letter and a number, such as H1 which can still be found on what was once the Brusselton Engineman's house.

The plaques were used by the S&DR for management purposes, grouping the houses by letter and helping to keep accurate records of them all.

The original engine house that held the stationary steam engine for the inclines can still be found at the end of Brusselton Lane.

This was converted into a cottage in the 1830s after a new engine house for a more powerful engine had been constructed on the other side of the line.

The now blocked archway in the end wall would have allowed access to the steam engine for maintenance and also allowed the steam engine to be linked to the winding drum which was set above the line.

Both the winding drum house and later engine house were dismantled in the late 19th century.

The original engine that was used here was designed and built by George Stephenson's son, Robert Stephenson.

This was Robert Stephenson and Company's first large-scale commission.

William Pease helped start the company so that it could supply the steam engines needed by the S&DR.

He even went as far as to lend Robert £500, which is around 37,000 in today's money, to buy shares in the company.

Since a top-of-the-line engine was needed to haul the large amounts of waggons, it ended up being rather expensive. Back then, it cost around £3,400 and 15 shillings, which is around £252,203, and was capable of running at 60 horsepower.

Robert designed the Brusselton engine before leaving to work on a contract in South America in 1824.

A year after the incline opened in 1825, Timothy Hackworth, who had worked at Robert Stephenson's Newcastle works before becoming the S&DR's Resident Engineer, made several modifications to increase the amount of traffic the Incline could handle whilst only using half of the power.

This massively increased the line's efficiency.

In 1831, Hackworth decided to replace the entire engine with a more powerful one, capable of generating up to 80 horsepower, compare that to modern day locomotion engines where you see horsepower up to 4500.

However, due to the greater size of this engine, a new engine house was needed.

The old engine house remained in operation whilst the replacement was built and then when construction was completed, the new engine took over. With the extra power the new engine provided, 6 trains of waggons could be moved an hour, each with 12 waggons making up each train.

When operating the inclines, it was essential the engineman and other workers at the top of the incline could communicate with workers at the bottom.

This problem eventually led to the creation of what may have been the first railway signal.

This early signal was simple in design consisting of a disc on top of a tall pole at the bottom of the bank. When the waggons were attached to the incline, the disc would be placed at the top of the pole so that the engineman could see it through a telescope.

But whenever the weather caused poor visibility on the line, such as rain or fog, it would be difficult for the engineman to see the disk.

As a solution to this, bells were added to the system so the signals could be heard.

The incline remained in service until the Shildon Railway Tunnel was completed in 1843 and it was then made redundant.

Despite this, the incline was kept in working order so that if the Shildon Railway Tunnel ever became blocked there was an alternative route.

Fortunately, this never happened and eventually, the incline was phased out in 1858, having served its purpose.

Today, the legacy of the Brusselton Incline lives on as a key part of the early history of the railway, showing how engineering innovations helped shape the development of our modern railway system.