Wells-next-the-Sea railway station

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Wells-next-the-Sea
Wells NTS 3 63 copy.jpg
Wells-next-the-Sea station in 1963
General information
Location Wells-next-the-Sea, North Norfolk, Norfolk
England
Coordinates 52°57′11″N0°51′25″E / 52.953°N 0.857°E / 52.953; 0.857
Grid reference TF920433
Platforms3
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Original company Wells and Fakenham Railway
Pre-grouping Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping London and North Eastern Railway
Eastern Region of British Railways
Key dates
1 December 1857Opened as Wells
1 July 1923Renamed Wells-on-Sea
1 January 1957Renamed Wells-next-the-Sea
5 October 1964Closed for passengers [1]
2 November 1964closed for freight

Wells-next-the-Sea was railway station that served the port town of Wells-next-the-Sea in North Norfolk, England. It was opened in 1857 by the Wells & Fakenham Railway, later part of the Great Eastern Railway's Wymondham to Wells branch, and became a junction in 1866 with the arrival of the West Norfolk Junction Railway. It closed in 1964.

Contents

Opening

The former Wells-next-the-Sea Station in 2007 Wells-next-the-Sea Station.jpg
The former Wells-next-the-Sea Station in 2007

Wells was first linked with the railway in 1857 when the Wells & Fakenham Railway opened a line to Fakenham East, [2] largely driven by the efforts of Lord Leicester and the directors of the railway company. It was originally planned to have been open on 1 June 1857, but negotiations with the Eastern Counties Railway, which would operate the line, delayed it until 1 December 1857. [3] [4] They hoped that the railway would help reverse the declining fortunes of the town, whose inability to take ships of increasing size saw it overtaken by other ports. The decline continued notwithstanding the construction of a short branch line to Wells Harbour in 1860. [5] In 1862, the Wells & Fakenham Railway became part of the Great Eastern Railway, [6] a move which brought greater importance to the Wells line by providing a north–south connection with London's increasing food markets. [7]

The West Norfolk Junction Railway was the next to come to Wells, on 17 August 1866. [8] [9] The line came from Heacham on an 18+12-mile (29.8 km) single track aimed at exploiting the great arc of coastline between Hunstanton and Yarmouth. [10] [11] This line entered Wells on a sharp curve, turning through a full 180 degrees before converging with the Wells & Fakenham branch from Dereham for the final approach. West Norfolk services used the outer face of a sheltered wooden island platform to the south of the station, with the inner face for services to Dereham and Wymondham. The Dereham side was unusual in that there was a platform on either side of the train, allowing the passengers the choice of which side to alight from, much the same as Ventnor and Ulverston stations. [12]

Station facilities

The main red brick two-storey L-shaped Georgian-style station buildings were constructed at right angles to the platform ends and incorporated a stationmaster's residence.

Wells had a combined engine shed and goods shed, with the locomotives having use of the whole shed when not required for goods. This adjoined the main station building on the Wells & Fakenham platform side. In 1929 the original 42-foot long (13 m) turntable was replaced by a second-hand 45-foot long (14 m) version. This lay just to the north of the station, and was capable of accommodating the former Great Eastern's "Claud Hamilton" locomotives and other 4-4-0 classes, but not the B12s or other large engines. [13] Wells was an outstation of Norwich depot, and there were up to five locomotives based there. The shed officially closed in September 1955 and has since been demolished. [14]

Operations

Plaque on station building Wells-next-the-Sea Station 2.jpg
Plaque on station building

Wells was a busy terminal station for almost 100 years, with a dozen or so passenger trains calling each day and goods trains from the harbour. An accident took place at Wells station on 29 May 1879, when the 7:50 pm train from Norwich ran away on the steep gradient approaching the terminus, smashed through the buffers at the end of the line and entered the station building through the porter's room and toilets. No passengers were injured, but a young man named George Cooke was killed in the station toilets. [15] Repairs can still be seen in the brickwork. Messrs Dewing & Kersley opened a corn mill adjacent to the station in 1904, and the smell of animal feedstuffs often wafted into the station to mix with the smoke, steam and hot oil odours given off by the locomotives, and the fishy smells coming from the 'Stiffkey Blues' cockles loaded into the guards' vans of trains. [16]

The post-war boom experienced by the King's Lynn to Hunstanton line was not felt on the West Norfolk Junction Railway, whose inconveniently sited stations contributed to declining passenger traffic. Passenger services between Wells and Heacham were withdrawn from 2 June 1952, but the line remained open to freight. In the North Sea flood of 1953, the track between Wells and Holkham was so severely damaged that British Railways considered it not worth repairing and the line was closed completely between these two places. [17] The station closed a little over ten years later when the line from Dereham to Wells closed to passenger traffic on 5 October 1964, freight continuing until the end of the month. [18]

Preceding station Disused railways Following station
Holkham
Line and station closed
  British Rail
Eastern Region

Heacham to Wells branch
 Terminus
Terminus  British Rail
Eastern Region

Wymondham to Wells via East Dereham
  Wighton Halt
Line and station closed

Present day

In 2007 the station building was a second-hand bookshop and pottery, [2] with the site of the platforms an industrial estate known as Great Eastern Way. The old corn mill was used as a furniture warehouse, before being converted into flats. Part of the ground floor is occupied by Wells Antiques Centre and Glaven Veterinary Centre.

Wells and Walsingham Light Railway

Since 1982, there has been a newer station at Wells, the terminus of the narrow gauge Wells and Walsingham Light Railway. [19] This station is located just south of where the original standard-gauge line crossed the main A149 coast road on the level.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wells and Walsingham Light Railway</span> Heritage railway in North Norfolk, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heacham railway station</span> Former railway station in Norfolk, England

Heacham was a railway station which served the seaside resort of Heacham in Norfolk, England. Opened in 1862, the station became a junction where services left the King's Lynn to Hunstanton line for Wells on the West Norfolk Junction Railway, which opened in 1866. The station closed with the Hunstanton line in 1969.

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The West Norfolk Junction Railway was a standard gauge eighteen and a half-mile single-track railway running between Wells-next-the-Sea railway station and Heacham in the English county of Norfolk. It opened in 1866 and closed in 1953. At Wells the line made a junction with the Wells and Fakenham Railway and at Heacham it connected with the line from Hunstanton to Kings Lynn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Norfolk Railway</span>

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The Wymondham to Wells Branch was a railway built in stages by the Norfolk Railway, Eastern Counties Railway and Wells and Fakenham Company between 1847 and 1857. The railway ran from Wymondham in the south, through Dereham and Fakenham to the coastal town of Wells-next-the-Sea; more specifically, the line ran from Wymondham South Junction, where it met the present-day Breckland Line. Passenger services along the line lasted until 1969; the railway continued to be used for freight until 1989. The southern section of the railway now forms the Mid-Norfolk Railway, with part of the northern section serving as the narrow gauge Wells and Walsingham Light Railway.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn and Hunstanton Railway</span> Railway line in Norfolk, England

The Lynn and Hunstanton Railway was a line connecting King's Lynn and Hunstanton in Norfolk, England that opened in 1862. The railway was a major factor in developing Hunstanton as a seaside resort and residential community. The company was allied to the West Norfolk Junction Railway which built a line connecting Heacham, south of Hunstanton, to Wells-next-the-Sea that was not a financial success. The companies amalgamated in 1874 to form the Hunstanton and West Norfolk Railway, and in 1890 the company was sold to the Great Eastern Railway.

References

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  2. 1 2 Couzens-Lake, Edward (2017). "29: Site of Railway Bridge, Wells-next-the-Sea" (e-book). A149 Landmarks. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing. p. n.p. ISBN   9781445661636 . Retrieved 12 May 2020 via Google Books.
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  5. Joby (1985), p. 43.
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  9. "Norfolk: West Norfolk Junction Railway". The Ipswich Journal. Ipswich, Suffolk. 7 July 1866. p. 8 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  10. Jenkins (1987), pp. 34–35.
  11. "Norfolk: West Norfolk Junction Railway". The Ipswich Journal. Ipswich, Suffolk. 25 August 1866. p. 8 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  12. Jenkins (1987), p. 103.
  13. Jenkins (1987), p. 105.
  14. Hawkins, Chris; Reeve, George (1986). Great Eastern Railway Engine Sheds. Wild Swan Publications Ltd. p. 205. ISBN   0-906867-40-1.
  15. "Singular & fatal railway accident". Bury & Norwich Post. Norwich. 3 June 1879.
  16. Joby (1985), pp. 44–45.
  17. Jenkins (1987), pp. 112–113.
  18. "Minister's ruling on railway closures". The Guardian. London. 4 March 1964. p. 5 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  19. Long, Peter (2004) [1998]. "Wells-next-the-Sea". The Hidden Places of England (fourth ed.). Travel Publishing, Ltd. p. 381. ISBN   1-904-434-12-6 . Retrieved 12 May 2020 via Google Books.