Thorpe Thewles railway station

Thorpe Thewles
The site of the station in August 2006
General information
Location	Thorpe Thewles, Stockton-on-Tees England
Coordinates	54°36′45″N 1°22′42″W / 54.6126°N 1.3784°W / 54.6126; -1.3784
Platforms	2
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	North Eastern Railway
Pre-grouping	North Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
Key dates
1 August 1878 (1878-08-01)	Station opened to goods
1 March 1880	Station opened to passengers
2 November 1931	Station closed to passengers
2 April 1951 (1951-04-02)	Station closed completely

Thorpe Thewles railway station was a stop on the

The station was of a standard design used by the NER during the 1870s. It had two platforms: the northbound platform (on the west side of the tracks) had a small waiting shelter while on the southbound (eastern) platform there was the station master's house, a waiting room, canopied ticket office and, from 1906, a signal box. There were also three goods sidings on the eastern side of lines serving, coal staiths, a loading platform and a livestock paddock.[2]

Passenger traffic on the line was always light, the line having been built primarily to allow freight to bypass the congested lines through Stockton and Hartlepool. Thorpe Thewles station served a parish which in 1881 had a population of just 234 people and in 1911 there were just 2,026 tickets issued at Thorpe Thewles station (this compares with 13,133 issued at Carlton station in the same year). Even so, there were four stopping passenger trains over the line per day in each direction in 1910^[2] and the number increased to five each way by the 1930s.^[1]

As part of an agreement between the NER and the Marquess of Londonderry, that permitted the NER to construct the line through his land, the Marquess was granted permission to stop early morning and evening trains to or from London at a station on the line, with Thorpe Thewles being the most conveniently located to serve Wynyard Park, one of the seats of the Marquess. However, there is little evidence that any London bound trains ever used the line and thus, in 1894, permission was granted to stop 7:30 am express from Newcastle and the 6:30 pm express from York at Thorpe Thewles. There has also been one report that on one occasion, the station was used by a royal party to travel to Wynyard Park.^[2]

There was an incident shortly before the

After the line was closed and the tracks lifted, it was purchased by the two local authorities whose areas it passed through, meaning that the line through Thorpe Thewles came under the control of Cleveland County Council who converted it into the Castle Eden Walkway cycle path (now part of the Wynyard Woodland Park). The station master's house at Thorpe Thewles became a field centre in 1983.^[2] Since then the remaining station buildings have been brought back into use and the site now houses a visitor centre,^[3] café,^[4] gift shop and farm shop.^[3]

References

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