built during this time, and it is said that, at one point, there were more pubs in Howden per square half-mile than anywhere else in the country. One notable piece of architecture from this period is the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart located at the junction of Knedlington Road and Buttfield Road. It is one of the early works of the distinguished architect, Joseph Aloysius Hansom, who later became famous for designing the hansom cab. However Hansom's greatest achievements were the churches (mostly Catholic) he designed, the most notable of which are St Walburge's in Preston (the church with the highest spire in England), the Holy Name in Manchester and what is now Arundel Cathedral. The Sacred Heart Church in Howden was opened in 1850 and is comparatively modest in size and simple in design, but nevertheless is clearly a work of some distinction. Howden's first railway station opened in 1840 and a second on the Hull and Barnsley Railway was open between 1885 and 1955. The town was the scene of the Howden rail accident in 1840, which killed five passengers when a large iron casting fell from a wagon, and derailed the train. It was one of the first accidents to be investigated by the new Railway Inspectorate. 20th century During the First World War the British Admiralty needed a suitable site in north-east England for a new airship station to protect the ports and ships from the threat of attack by German U-boats. RNAS Howden opened in 1916 with its airship hangars. It provided not only protection for shipping along the east coast, but also jobs for hundreds of civilians. This helped to turn round the town's fortunes, which had been suffering since the building of the port at nearby Goole, and the passing of the horse fairs. The airship station was closed following the abandonment of rigid airship development after the war and sold to a private developer, but with the establishment of the Imperial Airship Scheme in 1924 was bought by Vickers for the construction of the airship R100. The author Nevil Shute Norway was part of the team that created the R100, working under Barnes Wallis, the engineer and later designer of the Vickers Wellington bomber, and inventor of the bouncing bomb. Shute lived at number 78 Hailgate, and a plaque is now fixed to the house to commemorate this. Shute is not