Shottle railway station is the second intermediate station on the former

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

branch line to the small town of

Wirksworth Wirksworth is a market town in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England. Its population of 5,038 in the 2011 census was estimated at 5,180 in 2019. Wirksworth contains the source of the River Ecclesbourne. The town was granted a mark ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

. The line is off the

Midland Main Line The Midland Main Line is a major railway line in England from London to Nottingham and Sheffield in the Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras station via Leicester, Derby/Nottingham and Chesterfield in the East Midlands. ...

at Duffield railway station, the first being Hazelwood. Shottle Railway station was reopened on 9 August 2014, by the

Ecclesbourne Valley Railway The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway is a long heritage railway in Derbyshire. The headquarters of the railway centre on Wirksworth station, and services operate in both directions between Wirksworth and Duffield and from Wirksworth to Rave ...

Location

The station is located just off the

A517 road List of A roads in zone 5 in Great Britain starting north/east of the A5, west of the A6, south of the Solway Firth/Eden Estuary The River Eden is a river in Fife in Scotland, and is one of Fife's two principal rivers, along with the Lev ...

, which is the main route from Belper to Ashbourne. New access has been created, and passengers can now access the station from the step entrance off the A517 Belper - Ashbourne Road, near to the cross-roads with the B5023. Disabled access is currently still under construction at this time. The road to the east of the line is private, belonging to the company which owns the station buildings. It is a request-only stop. The nearest settlement to the station is the group of dwellings and public house at the road junction, known as Cowers Lane. However, the station is more or less equidistant from the two slightly larger settlements of

Turnditch Turnditch is a village and civil parish in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 301. It is around north of Derby on the A517 road from Belper to Ashbourne. It is built on bo ...

to the west, and Shottlegate to the east.

History

Opened with other stations on the branch line to Wirksworth on 1 October 1867, it was designed by the

company architect

John Holloway Sanders John Holloway Sanders FRIBA (1825 – 16 October 1884) was an architect based in England and chief architect of the Midland Railway until 1884. His date of appointment as Chief Architect to the Midland Railway is not known, but he is recorded as ...

. Shottle remained open until 16 June 1947, when the Wirksworth branch passenger service was withdrawn on a temporary basis in response to postwar fuel shortages. This was made permanent with effect from May 1949, when the line was removed from the summer timetable. Freight facilities remained rail-served at Shottle until 2 March 1964, while the branch continued to be used for mineral traffic until December 1989. The station buildings, platform and former railway cottages remain, the former and part of the station yard being owned by a local oil distribution company who use the building as their headquarters and have repaired its structure in a sympathetic manner. Public access to the site is limited. The Branch is owned by WyvernRail plc and forms part of the Heritage

. The section of the line through Shottle is now in use by passenger services (as is the station itself that has now recently reopened to passengers for the very first time in 65 years since 1947). However, the platform is open (but the station building remains within privacy). Principal traffic on this section comprises road/rail plant that uses the line as part of a formal acceptance procedure for the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB). To support these operations, siding space has been reinstated at the site. During the 2012 season, a passing loop was constructed at Shottle, allowing train services to continue while the platform was being rebuilt, and the pointwork at the southern end having slewed into a Y-shape over the winter months. A temporary speed limit is in place. As of March 2016, two-train running is now possible following completion of rebuilding work, increasing train services to approximately seven round-trip services a day.

Stationmasters

*John Towler until 1873 *J. Clementson 1873 - 1874 (formerly station master at Long Preston) *Eli Croft 1874 - 1876 *Herbert Barber 1876 - 1908 *Frederick George Arnson ca. 1912 *H. Swift 1914 - 1929 (also station master at Hazelwood) *G.W. Marple 1929 - 1936 (also station master at Hazelwood until 1931, then also station master at Idridgehay, afterwards station master at Wirksworth) *A.H. Webb 1936 - 1937 (also station master at Idridgehay) *A. Harrison 1937 - 1938 (also station master at Idridgehay, afterwards station master at Little Eaton) *W. Cooke 1938 - ???? (also station master at Idridgehay)

Route

References

Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland, pub. London (May, 1891) – Hulland – pp.234-235
Hulland is described as "3½ miles west from Shottle station"

photos of the station from 1910 and 2004.

Print references

External links

Technical note describing the test procedure for "Possession-only rail vehicles prevention of derailment assessment" which references the use of the Wirksworth Branch
{dead link, date=May 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes
Ecclesbourne Valley Railway official website

Ecclesbourne Valley Railway Association official website

* ttp://www.britishrailways1960.co.uk/MIDTMCEN05.html British Railways in 1960 - the Wirksworth branch Heritage railway stations in Derbyshire Former Midland Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1867 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1947 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 2014 John Holloway Sanders railway stations