Luddendenfoot railway station served the village of

Luddendenfoot Luddendenfoot or Luddenden Foot is a community in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. The population of Luddendenfoot is 2,547, with the wider Calderdale Ward (of the same name) at the 2011 Census as 10,653. It lies along the Upper Calder Valle ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England, from 1840 until 1962.

History

The

Manchester and Leeds Railway The Manchester and Leeds Railway was a British railway company that built a line from Manchester to Normanton where it made a junction with the North Midland Railway, over which it relied on running powers to access Leeds. The line followed the ...

, which was authorised in 1836 for a line from

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

to , was opened in stages; the second section, between Normanton and , opened on 5 October 1840, and one of the original stations was that at Luddendenfoot. On 1 April 1841,

Branwell Brontë Patrick Branwell Brontë (, commonly ; 26 June 1817 – 24 September 1848) was an English painter and writer. He was the only son of the Brontë family, and brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Brontë was rigorously tutored at h ...

was transferred from and appointed 'clerk in charge' at Luddendenfoot at a salary of £130 per annum. Under him was a porter named Watson; and when Brontë went drinking, he left Watson in charge. Later, an audit of the station accounts showed a deficit of eleven pounds, one

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

and sevenpence, which Watson had probably stolen; but Brontë was dismissed, and also had to make up the shortfall from his outstanding salary. In 1880 the bridge across the River Calder leading to the station was destroyed by a flood. The Luddendenfoot Local Board of Health commissioned the new ''Boy Bridge'' from Halifax architects Utley and Grey, with James Wild, a local stonemason and ironwork by Wood Brothers of Sowerby Bridge. James Wild also built the Station Bridge over the

Rochdale Canal The Rochdale Canal is in Northern England, between Manchester and Sowerby Bridge, part of the connected system of the canals of Great Britain. Its name refers to the town of Rochdale through which it passes. The Rochdale is a broad canal beca ...

. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway contributed £1,625 to the cost of rebuilding the bridge and it was completed in 1882. Two fatal accidents occurred close to the station before its closure - the first in 1925 and the second thirty years later in 1955. The station closed on 10 September 1962. The site has been developed since 2007 and the northern half is now occupied by the Station Industrial Park, which is accessible via Old Station Road. Two gate pillars from the original station flank the entrance to the road.

References

External links

Luddendenfoot station on navigable 1947 O. S. map
Disused railway stations in Calderdale Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1840 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1962 {{Yorkshire-Humber-railstation-stub