Norwich Victoria was a railway station in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

and the former

terminus Terminus may refer to: * Bus terminus, a bus station serving as an end destination * Terminal train station or terminus, a railway station serving as an end destination Geography *Terminus, the unofficial original name of Atlanta, Georgia, United ...

of the Great Eastern Main Line. There were at one time three railway stations in Norwich, the others being

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or The Yellows) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. The club competes in the EFL Championship following their relegation from the Premier League in the 20 ...

and Norwich Thorpe. Currently, only the former Thorpe station, now known simply as "Norwich", remains in use.

Opening

The station was opened by the

Eastern Union Railway The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. T ...

(EUR), with regular passenger services commencing on 12 December 1849. The booking hall of the station had once housed a circus which formed an entertainment centre known as Ranelagh Gardens. The circus on the site had been operated by a Spanish-sounding gentleman named

Pablo Fanque Pablo Fanque (born William Darby; 30 March 1810 – 4 May 1871) was a British equestrian performer and circus proprietor, becoming the first recorded Black circus owner in Britain. His circus was popular in Victorian Britain for 30 years, a p ...

(in reality a Mr Darby from Norwich) and when the EUR purchased the site they then sold the various circus fittings. The station had two platforms arranged in a V-shape, with the V at the south end and the rotunda (or pantheon) containing the ticket office at the north end. A small garden was located between the two platforms. According to the 1914

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

plan of the site, there was a two-road engine shed (which measured 136 feet by 40 feet) and a turntable to the west of the station, and goods facilities to the east. The station was not well sited, in that passengers wishing to continue a journey beyond Norwich had to transfer to Thorpe station. On 8 September 1851 a link opened from the EUR line to the Norwich-to- Ely line, and most

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

services then used Thorpe station, Victoria being left with four or five trains each day. The EUR was taken over by the

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on the first nine miles at the Lond ...

(ECR) in 1854. However, by the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR. It wished to amalgamate formally but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by the amalgamation. Thus Norwich Thorpe and Norwich Victoria became GER stations in 1862.

Closure

The station was closed to passenger traffic in 1916, but was converted for goods traffic whilst coal was still handled in the adjacent yard. The engine shed and turntable had been removed by 1926. The station buildings were largely demolished after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, and were finally removed in February 1953. Victoria played a significant role in handling goods traffic in the city. The table below shows the tonnages handled by the four Norwich stations in a 12-week period ending in October 1958. The station closed to goods in 1966; at that time the adjacent coal yard was modernised, becoming a coal concentration depot. Traffic was generally worked by Class 03 or Class 08 shunters from the main station at Norwich until closure of the line in September 1986. The coal depot site is now occupied by a

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

store, and the main station site is occupied by the Norwich offices of

Marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...

. Most of the buildings disappeared long ago; the trackbed has been converted into a footpath known as Lakenham Way, for use by pedestrians and cyclists.Lakenham way
Retrieved 23 April 2011

References

External links

Norwich Victoria station (black nearest map centre) on navigable 1946 O. S. map

Photograph of the former circus building in use as the station booking hall
{{coord, 52.6232, 1.2911, type:railwaystation_region:GB, display=title Disused railway stations in Norfolk Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1849 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1966 1849 establishments in England Transport in Norwich Buildings and structures in Norwich

Opening

Closure

See also

References

External links