Cleckheaton Central railway station was a railway station serving the West Yorkshire town of Cleckheaton, England, until it was closed in the Beeching era, which saw the closure of many minor lines and stations around the United Kingdom through the 1960s. It has the distinction of being the only British railway station to have been stolen.

History

The station was originally constructed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, which was absorbed by the LNWR in 1922 and subsequently the

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in 1923 at grouping and finally to

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

on nationalisation. It served traffic from Heckmondwike, Low Moor (near

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

) and Mirfield. The Mirfield line opened in 1848 and through to Low Moor in 1849. The last passenger train working was the service from

on 12 June 1965 arriving at Cleckheaton at 11:21 p.m.; the station closed to freight traffic some four years later.

Theft case

The passenger station buildings were demolished by British Rail in February 1968 - but the stone-built island platform remained in situ for a few years more. In 1972 a

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...

man appeared at Wakefield

Crown Court The Crown Court is the court of first instance of England and Wales responsible for hearing all Indictable offence, indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals lied to it by the Magistrates' court, magistrates' court ...

accused of stealing stone, timber, metal, track, chairs and even the buffer stops from the site; in the words of the prosecution counsel "what the case really comes to is that this man last August in effect stole Cleckheaton station".Spenborough Guardian
/ref>"Man denies theft of railway station", ''The Times'', 25 April 1972, p. 3. In August 1971

had made a contract with another contractor who would clear the site and had the permission to sell and retain the proceeds from disposal of all materials and any scrap. However, on arrival, the firm discovered that the station and most of the material had already gone. It transpired that the defendant had been contracted by another company to clear the site. After he had been given an advanced sum to hire plant equipment, he had spent three weeks clearing the site. Subsequent efforts to trace the second firm failed. The court found the man not guilty deciding that he had been duped and left significantly out of pocket. The case is cited as an example of how the Theft Act 1968 can be extended to cover goods forming part of a property.Storey & Lidbury, ''Criminal Law'', Willan Publishing, 2004 , p. 166

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cleckheaton Central Railway Station Disused railway stations in Kirklees Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway stations Beeching closures in England Cleckheaton Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1847 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1965 1847 establishments in England