Kirby school buildings adjacent to the church were built in the mid 19th century. The rail network reached Cottingham in October 1846, with the opening of Cottingham railway station and the Hull and Bridlington Railway extension of the Hull and Selby Railway. Cottingham station was built close to and east of the village centre. After the arrival of the railway housing development began for the middle classes of Hull; resulting in the construction of terraced and semi-detached villas. 1850 to present By the 1850s Cottingham was a substantial village, with housing along its main streets of Northgate, Hallgate, King Street, Newgate Street, South Street, and Thwaite Street. The Provincial Gaslight and Coke Company was established in the 1850s, building a gas works in the village, north of the railway station, at a cost of £3,258. During the 20th century the gas works site was used for a cloth mill, "Station Mills", owned by Paley & Donkin who produced oil press cloths. Additional industry developed on the site north-west of the station, including a saw mill. As of 2012 the mill building are still extant, and in industrial/commercial use. Until 1857, nearby Skidby was part of the parish of Cottingham. In 1875, Charles Wilson acquired Thwaite House and extended it, converting it into a substantial mansion. General housing development between the 1850s and 1890 was limited, a terrace of houses was built on the eastern part of Hallgate, close to the railway station. By 1910, additional terraces had been built to the north and east of the village close to the railway, on New Village Lane and east of Millhouse Woods Lane. By the 1870s the expansion of Hull was predicted to be such that additional water supply would be needed, and plans for extraction were made for two sites near Cottingham. In 1890 a pumping station ('Mill Dam pumping station') was opened north of the village centre, near Mill Dam stream; built to supply Kingston upon Hull with water from the aquifer via three boreholes. West of the village at Keldgate a reservoir was constructed in 1909 with a capacity of about ; representing a day's usage. The reservoir was expanded in the 1930s, with the construction of a second "No.2 reservoir" with a capacity of about . In around 1890, a cemetery separate to the churchyard was established, on Eppleworth Road; the earliest recorded interment dates to 1889. In