Tadcaster railway station was on the
Harrogate to Church Fenton Line in
Tadcaster,
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
, England.
History
The station opened in 1848 as part of the
Harrogate to Church Fenton Line of the
York and North Midland Railway
The York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was an English railway company that opened in 1839 connecting York with the Leeds and Selby Railway, and in 1840 extended this line to meet the North Midland Railway at Normanton near Leeds. Its first c ...
.
Another line from Copmanthorpe to Cross Gates was authorised in 1846 and would have joined the line from Harrogate just north of Tadcaster station, but this project failed after the construction of the viaduct across the
River Wharfe
The River Wharfe ( ) is a river in Yorkshire, England originating within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. For much of its middle course it is the county boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. Its valley is known as Wharfedale.
...
; earthworks marking the proposed line are still visible running eastward parallel with the A659 past what is now the Gallows Hill estate, but the only line laid was a short goods spur across the viaduct to a corn mill near the site of the modern-day Sainsbury's supermarket, adjacent to Tadcaster Bridge. This short branch line is marked as still extant on the 1947 New Popular Edition
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 ...
map.
The viaduct is now crossed by a public footpath.
Unlike other railway stations on the line, Tadcaster had fully enclosed platforms under a single station canopy. The station building was designed by
G. T. Andrews in
Gothic style
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
** Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken ...
. A lattice footbridge connected the platforms. There were two signal boxes. The northern one controlled the level crossing north of the station and some private
sidings beyond it, the southern one which appears to have been closed and dismantled by 1909 controlled the goods yard tracks. The station had a goods office, a goods shed, and an adjacent water tower. Malt houses, breweries, and a flour mill were major freight customers. Much of the passenger traffic resulted from special trains for the students of
Tadcaster Grammar School
Tadcaster Grammar School founded in 1557, is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located near Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England, educating children aged 11–18 years old, and has an on-site sixth form.
The school is located in t ...
; the number of advertised passenger services was low.
During the 1870s Tadcaster Station was served by six timetabled passenger services in each direction on Mondays to Saturdays (there were no Sunday trains), but by the 1950s there was only one daily passenger train toward Harrogate and one toward Church Fenton. The station closed to passenger traffic on 6 January 1964; goods traffic ended on 30 November 1966.
The site was bought by Tadcaster Rural Council, and after obtaining permission in 1971 it was completely demolished, with some of the stonework being reclaimed for new housing in the town.
Nothing now remains of the station and the site now forms part of an industrial estate just off Station Road with much of the trackbed in the area now largely removed, built on or integrated into the fields which it used to run over. Part of the trackbed is still visible over a bridge over the River Wharfe at nearby Boston Spa.
Sustrans
Sustrans is a United Kingdom-based walking, wheeling and cycling charity, and the custodian of the National Cycle Network.
Its flagship project is the National Cycle Network, which has created of signed cycle routes throughout the United K ...
are/were maintaining the line from Thorp Arch northwards past the site of the former Wetherby Racecourse Station to just short of the site of the former Wetherby (Goods) Station.
See also
*
Tadcaster Viaduct
References
Sources
*
External links
*
{{Railway stations in the Selby District
Disused railway stations in North Yorkshire
Beeching closures in England
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1848
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1964
Tadcaster
Former York and North Midland Railway stations
George Townsend Andrews railway stations