Description:A post-card view of the LNWR staff houses in Colton Road, Rugeley, under construction, late summer 1907. They were built as part of the redevelopment of Rugeley (Trent Valley) Station, completed in 1909. The original station building, which also contained living accommodation for the stationmaster and station foreman, was demolished for the land needed to widen the railway to four tracks. The staff houses were also demolished and replaced by the ‘Fog Cottages’ in Colton Road, built before the station works were commenced in order not to render the staff homeless.
The building contractor was W. Heap of Northampton for a total cost of £2,388 and they were ready for occupation in the early spring of 1908. Some of the people in the photograph could be station staff inspecting their new homes. The houses comprise a terrace of ten dwellings, the end two being larger, one specified by the LNWR for the station foreman and the other occupied later by the Rugeley Town Stationmaster. The eight intermediate houses were arranged in four pairs, one house in each pair being a ‘mirror image’ of its neighbour. All ten dwellings had kitchens in lean-to extensions at the rear and detached ‘back-to-back’ outside toilets, which can be seen. The external walls are of rough red brick with the upper half rendered, and in the lower half there are two bands of smooth ‘Ruabon’ bricks, a single course at window lintel level and two courses at windowsill level with the ground floor curved window lintels of the same brick – these features being typical of LNWR standard company house brickwork. Window frames, doors and porches were among the standard parts manufactured by the LNWR at Crewe and the roofing was Welsh slates.
They were nicknamed ‘Fog Cottages’ because the Foreman’s house had a bell operated from the nearby signal box summoning him to go out in fog to lay detonators on the rails, or to delegate the task to other members of staff, and the nickname has stuck.
Information provided by Robin Mathams and Dave Barrett, The Trent Valley Railway History Project.