Thorington railway station (also Thorrington railway station) was a station in

Thorrington Thorrington is a village and civil parish in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It lies east of Wivenhoe and north of Brightlingsea. The striking medieval flint church is dedicated to Mary Magdalene, and the patrons of the church are St J ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

on the line (now called the

Sunshine Coast Line The Sunshine Coast Line is the current marketing name of what originally was the Tendring Hundred Railway Line, a branch off the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England. It links to the seaside resorts of and, via a branch, . The line ...

) from Colchester to Walton on the Naze and Clacton, opened in 1866 and closed in 1957. The station was situated in between Alresford and

Great Bentley Great Bentley is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Tendring district of north Essex, England, located seven miles east of Colchester. The parish includes the hamlets of Aingers Green and South Heath. It is home to the second larg ...

. It was closed due to its close proximity to the much busier station at

, just half a mile down the track.

History

In 1859 the Tendring Hundred Railway Company was formed to extend the line from Hythe to

Wivenhoe Wivenhoe ( ) is a town and civil parish in north-eastern Essex, England, approximately south-east of Colchester. Historically Wivenhoe village, on the banks of the River Colne, and Wivenhoe Cross, on the higher ground to the north, were two ...

which opened on 8 May 1863 for both passenger and goods services from Colchester. By the time the Wivenhoe extension opened the line was operated by the GER

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

who bought the line from the Tendring Hundred Railway in 1883. Thorington station was opened as part of the Tendring Hundred Extension Railway on 8 January 1866. Initially the station was served by a single track but the line was doubled between Great Bentley and Thorpe-le-Soken by the

in 1891. The Wivenhoe to Great Bentley section was doubled in 1898. The confusion as to the spelling of the name appears long-established; although Victorian Ordnance Survey maps show 'Thorrington Station' - and this has remained the official spelling ever since as far as local authorities are concerned - Bradshaw's timetables list 'Thorington', as did the BR Eastern Region timetable up until the station's closure. Indeed, the main signs on the station platforms read 'Thorington'. Operation of the station passed to the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923. In 1948 the station became part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. The 1955 modernisation plan proposed the

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...

of the line through Thorington but unfortunately the station closed on 4 November 1957, and was the only station on the Colchester to Clacton Line to close. In 2002, there was an unsuccessful campaign to re-open the station.

Route

References

External links

Thorington station on navigable 1948 O. S. map
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1866 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1957 Disused railway stations in Essex Former Great Eastern Railway stations 1866 establishments in England Tendring {{EastEngland-railstation-stub