Designed by Patrick Stirling, they are characterised by a single pair of large (8 ft 1 in) driving wheels which led to the nickname "eight-footer".

He also borrowed a 'single-wheeler' from the Great Eastern Railway and, in 1868, designed two versions of a 2-2-2 arrangement with 7 ft 1 in (2.159 m) driving wheels.

[3] The outcome in 1870 was a locomotive with 8 ft 1 in (2,460 mm) driving wheels, designed specifically for high-speed expresses between York and London.

However, not only were there frequent failures of the cranked axle shafts, with such large driving wheels they would have set the boiler too high.

[5] George Frederick Bird referred to the three series as "G, G2 and G3 classes" in 1910,[6] and this classification has been used in other sources[7] but it does not appear to have been used officially by the GNR.

It then passed through the hands of a number of private owners until it was bought by the World of Country Life Museum at Sandy Bay, Exmouth, Devon, in 1986.

[citation needed] Bagnall had earlier in 1893 supplied a similar model (works number 1425) to Lord Downshire of Easthampstead Park, Crowthorne Berkshire.

This engine was later preserved by Mr Hoare in the Boys Reading Room at the Training Ship Mercury at Hamble.

[citation needed] Nuremberg toymaker Georges Carette's range included a 2.5 inch-gauge model of Stirling Single 776, in around 1900.

David Boyle, founder of Dapol Model Railways, recalls seeing the moulds being destroyed in the early 1980s, leading him to purchase the tooling for and reissue the remaining Kitmaster kits.