Source: "The Midland railway: its rise and progress. A narrative of modern enterprise" by Frederick Smeeton Williams, published by Strahan & Co London (1876). The following extract is from pages 482-3:
"Settle presented, when we first saw it, a strange and confused appearance. The pretty passenger station, built of freestone and in Gothic style, was nearly finished; the walls of the spacious goods shed were almost ready to receive the roof, and the commodious cottages hard by for the Company's servants would soon be completed; but around were whitewashed wooden sheds, the temporary offices or homes of the Company's staff', and innumerable piles of contractors' materials no longer required, but ready marked off in lots for a great clearance sale.
"It is the dinner hour, and a strange silence prevails throughout the works. Navvies are taking their siesta on the great piled-up baulks of timber, in various and grotesque attitudes; apparently sleeping as composedly, and certainly snoring as satisfactorily, as any alderman could hope to do on his feather bed; while ever and anon some foreman or mason comes to his wooden cottage door, and wistfully gazes at the strangers, wondering what their errand may be."