Alnwick railway station

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Alnwick
Alnwick - Former railway station - 1.jpg
General information
Location Alnwick, Northumberland
England
Coordinates 55°24′36″N1°41′56″W / 55.410°N 1.699°W / 55.410; -1.699
Platforms2
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Original company
 North Eastern Railway
Pre-groupingNorth Eastern Railway
Post-grouping London and North Eastern Railway,
North Eastern Region of British Railways
Key dates
19 August 1850Station opens
5 September 1887Station relocated
29 January 1968Passenger service withdrawn
7 October 1968Freight service withdrawn
Location
Alnwick railway station

Alnwick railway station served the town of Alnwick, in Northumberland, England. It was the terminus of two routes: the Alnwick branch line, which diverged from the East Coast Main Line at Alnmouth, and the Cornhill branch line to Coldstream.

Contents

History

The first station on the edge of the town opened, along with the branch, on 19 August 1850; it was first used by a special train on 6 August. [1]

It was replaced by a station nearer the town centre, which was opened in 1887 by the North Eastern Railway. It became part of the London and North Eastern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the North Eastern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. [2]

The station was also the terminus of the Cornhill branch line to Coldstream, which closed to passengers on 22 September 1930. [2]

It was closed to passengers by the British Railways Board in January 1968 and completely in October 1968. [2] After the station's closure, the building was used as a storage facility until 1991, when it was purchased by its present owners. [3]

In 1993, a proposal to redevelop the site into a supermarket failed. [2]

Preceding stationDisused railwaysFollowing station
Terminus  North Eastern Railway
Alnwick branch line 		  Alnmouth
Line closed; station open
Edlingham
Line and station closed		  North Eastern Railway
Cornhill branch line 		 Terminus

Present use

Inside the modern-day bookshop Alnwick - Former railway station - 3.jpg
Inside the modern-day bookshop

The trainshed remains intact; the platforms have been in-filled. [2]

In 1991, the station was purchased by an American-British couple, Stuart and Mary Manley, who turned the trainshed into a second-hand bookshop named Barter Books. It is now the UK's largest second-hand bookshop, with a stock of over 350,000 titles (as of October 2026). It was here that the motivational World War II poster Keep Calm and Carry On was rediscovered in 2020. [3]

The bookshop, with its model railway network, was featured in Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys (first broadcast on BBC2, 23 January 2012) and Tim Dunn's The Architecture the Railways Built (first broadcast on Yesterday, 25 October 2021).[ citation needed ]

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Quick 2009, p. 47.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Catford, Nick (18 August 2018). "Station name: Alnwick". Disused Stations. Retrieved 24 March 2025.
  3. 1 2 Vitaliev, Vitali (14 October 2026). "Where things don't stand". RAIL . No. 1027. Peterborough: Bauer Consumer Media. p. 68}.

Sources

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