Welwyn North railway station
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Welwyn North railway station serves the villages of
Digswell Digswell is an ancient village and former parish in the English county of Hertfordshire which is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book. The population of the urban area of Digswell in the 2011 Census was 1,632. Digswell's name may be derived from ...
and
Welwyn Welwyn is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes referred to as Old Welwyn or Welwyn Village, to distinguish it from the much newer and larger ...
in Hertfordshire,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The station is located north of London King's Cross, on the East Coast Main Line. Train services are currently provided by
Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying ...
.


Location

Although the station is north of
Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...
, the village of
Welwyn Welwyn is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes referred to as Old Welwyn or Welwyn Village, to distinguish it from the much newer and larger ...
is about west in the modern district of
Digswell Digswell is an ancient village and former parish in the English county of Hertfordshire which is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book. The population of the urban area of Digswell in the 2011 Census was 1,632. Digswell's name may be derived from ...
, which in 1865 was known as High Welwyn and is shown on maps of that period. It is still called High Welwyn as Digswell Parish was dissolved in 1926 when it became absorbed into Welwyn Garden City. Just to the south of the station the line passes over the Digswell Viaduct, and to the north through two tunnels. This section (between Digswell Junction to the south of the viaduct and Woolmer Green) is a significant bottleneck where four lines are reduced to two.


History

Construction of the station and viaduct began in 1848 and the line was opened in 1850 as part of the Great Northern Railway. It was called Welwyn Station until 1926, when it was renamed following the opening of a new station for . It was built by contractor
Thomas Brassey Thomas Brassey (7 November 18058 December 1870) was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about o ...
out of red brick produced locally from the Welwyn Brick Fields at Ayot Green. The viaduct is built on floating foundations as the bed of the Mimram Valley was not stable enough for normal ones. These floats consisted of timber beams filled with burned chalk onto which the towers were built. The tunnels were hand-dug by the thousands of manual workers, mainly Irish, for whom a new tented village was built centred on the Cowper Arms, itself built to stop the workers descending on the taverns in Welwyn. The viaduct lay midway between Welwyn Junction (the sign still remains), which was the point at which the main line was crossed by the Hertford to Luton line, and High Welwyn, where the station is located. The Welwyn Tunnel rail crash occurred in 1866 in the longer of the two tunnels to the north of the station. In its heyday the station served local agriculture as well as passenger traffic. There was a goods yard and goods shed on the west side and sidings to the north and south. These included an impressive set of
coal drops A coal drop is an elevated railway track designed to allow material to fall freely between the rails onto the ground beneath. It is used to rapidly unload hoppers containing coal and other bulk cargo Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is tran ...
and, from 1884, a private siding for the adjacent beehive works (E. H. Taylor Ltd. from 1900). The complex included three railway worker's cottages on the west (down) side and two on the east (up). Much of the land to build the station was purchased from local landowner George Augustus 6th Earl Cowper, who built the Railway Inn (later renamed the Cowper Arms Hotel) on land adjoining to the west. This is contemporary with the station and built in the same red brick, reputedly by the same
navvies Navvy, a clipping of navigator ( UK) or navigational engineer ( US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally (in North America) to refer to mechanical shovels and ea ...
(who went on to frequent it). Today the goods yard has made way for a car park but the main station building, the worker's cottages and the Cowper Arms remain. The station is a rare survival of architecture from the early days of the GNR and this is now recognised with
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
status. The main station building, the remaining portion of the footbridge and the tunnel portal to the north are all Grade II listed, while
Welwyn Viaduct The Digswell Viaduct, also called Welwyn Viaduct, is a railway viaduct that carries the East Coast Main Line over the River Mimram in the county of Hertfordshire in England. A prominent local landmark, it is located between Welwyn Garden City ...
to the south is Grade II* listed.


Services

All services at Welwyn North are operated by
Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying ...
using
EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the g ...
. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 2 tph to * 2 tph to of which 1 continues to During the peak hours, all services are extended beyond Letchworth Garden City to Cambridge. On Sundays, the station is served by an hourly service between London King's Cross and Cambridge.


References

*Welwyn's Railways: A History of the Great Northern Line, 1850–1986, Tom W. Gladwin, Peter W. Neville, Douglas E. White, The Book Castle (November 1986) *History of Welwyn by Gordon Longmead


External links

{{TSGN and SE Stations, Peterborough=y, SE None=y, SN None=y Railway stations in Hertfordshire DfT Category E stations Former Great Northern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1850 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway Welwyn