Harrogate–Church Fenton line

Disused railway line in Yorkshire, England

Harrogate–Church Fenton line

Prospect Tunnel

Overview
Status| Closed from Crimple junction to Church Fenton junction
Locale| North Yorkshire
Termini|

* Harrogate
* Church Fenton North Junction

Stations| 8
Service
Type| Heavy rail
Operator(s)|

* York and North Midland Railway to 1854
* North Eastern Railway 1854–1923
* London and North Eastern Railway 1923–1948
* British Railways (N.E region) 1948 to closure

Depot(s)| Harrogate Low (Brunswick, closed 1862)[1]
History
Opened| 10 August 1847
Closed| 6 January 1964 (passengers), 30 November 1966 (goods)
Technical
Line length| 18.5 miles (29.8 km)
Number of tracks| double
Track gauge| 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Highest elevation| 393 ft (120 m)

Route map

Legend

|  |  |

|  |

Harrogate Line

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|
|
|

|  |

|  | Harrogate
|  |

|  | Harrogate (Brunswick)
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|  |

Crimple Valley Viaduct

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|  |

Leeds–Northallerton Railway

|  |

|  | Crimple

(closed 1869)

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|  |

Harrogate Line

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|  |

Prospect Tunnel

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|  | Spofforth
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|  |

Cross Gates to Wetherby Line

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|  | Wetherby (York Road)
|  |

|  | Wetherby Racecourse
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|  | Thorp Arch
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|  |
|  |

|  | ROF Thorp Arch
|  |

|  |

River Wharfe

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|  | Newton Kyme
|  |

|  | Tadcaster
|  |

|  | Stutton
|  |

|  | Church Fenton

| former York and North Midland Railway

to York │ to Burton Salmon

|  |  |  |  |  |

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The Harrogate–Church Fenton line was a railway line in North Yorkshire, opened by the York and North Midland Railway between 1847 and 1848, linking Harrogate and Church Fenton.

## History

[edit]

Viaduct near Spofforth Castle

The Harrogate–Church Fenton line ran from Harrogate to Church Fenton.[2] It was staked out by York and North Midland Railway in September 1845 and opened from Church Fenton to Spofforth on 10 August 1847.[3][4] The line from Spofforth and Harrogate was opened on 20 July 1848,[5] after the completion of the major engineering structures on the line, the 31-arch, 624 yards (571 m) Crimple Viaduct and the 825-yard (754 m) Prospect Tunnel.[6]

A short-lived station named Crimple, located on the junction with the Leeds–Harrogate line immediately east of the viaduct, only appeared in timetables from 1867 to 1869 and has been demolished.[7] The curve from Pannal Junction to Crimple Junction was opened on 1 August 1862 and enabled trains from Leeds to reach the new station at Harrogate across Crimple Viaduct.

In 1901, a new south-to-west curve was built at Wetherby to enable trains from Harrogate to Wetherby to use the Cross Gates–Wetherby line without reversing.[8] Following that, a new passenger station serving Wetherby was opened on the Cross Gates–Wetherby line, and the Wetherby station on the Harrogate–Church Fenton line became goods-only.[9]

In April 1942, the Thorp Arch circular railway was opened to serve Thorp Arch Royal Ordnance Factory, which produced munitions. Trains accessed the single-track railway from the Harrogate–Church Fenton line near Thorp Arch station.[10] The ROF at Thorp Arch closed in 1958 and the circular railway was closed and lifted in the same year.[11]

Stutton station closed to passengers on 1 July 1905 but remained open for goods until the end of July 1964.[12] The station master at Stutton in the 1890s was named Wilson Mortimer and his story, along with the traffic dealt with at this small station, is covered in a research paper.[13]

The whole line between Crimple Junction and Church Fenton North Junction was closed to passengers in January 1964, being one of the first casualties of the Beeching cuts,[8] and closed entirely in 1966.[14]

## Harrogate Brunswick

[edit]

The original terminus was at Harrogate Brunswick, on a line that left the present one just north of Hornbeam Park railway station and headed westwards through the 400-yard (370 m) Brunswick Tunnel, exiting at the site of the Leeds Road and Park Drive roundabout. It then went through a cutting before terminating at Brunswick Station.[15]

The railway was routed through a tunnel rather than across The Stray parkland because the townsfolk were worried about the railway lowering the aristocratic tone of the spa town.[16] The station was in operation from 1848 to 1862, and was replaced when the North Eastern Railway built a station on the site of what is the modern day Harrogate railway station.[17]

During the Second World War, Brunswick Tunnel was used as an air raid shelter.[18]

## The line today

[edit]

A very short stretch of the original line (2-mile (3.2 km)) is still in use as part of the Harrogate line, with services to and from Leeds.[19] Whilst the southern portal of the tunnel is still visible, all traces of the station site at Brunswick have been removed.[20]

In 1992, a 3-mile (4.8 km) stretch of the former trackbed between Spofforth and Wetherby was converted into a cycle track.[14] By 2003, the path had been extended to Thorp Arch and also included the former triangle of lines at Wetherby, thereby linking with cycle paths to Linton and Collingham on the West Yorkshire Cycle Route.[21]

In January 2019, the Campaign for Better Transport released a report identifying the line as Priority 2 for reopening. Priority 2 is for those lines which require further development or a change in circumstances, such as housing developments.[22]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Catford, Nick. "Harrogate Brunswick". Disused Stations. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
2. ^ Bertram, D. (February 1961). "The lines to Wetherby and their traffic". Trains Illustrated. pp. 99–106.
3. ^ Rogers, J. (2000). The railways of Harrogate and district. North East Railway Association. OCLC 867992093.
4. ^ "Disused Stations:Spofforth Station". disused-stations.org.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
5. ^ Burgess, Neil (2014). "Church Fenton - Harrogate". The lost railways of Yorkshire's West Riding: Harrogate and the north. Catrine: Stenlake Publishing. p. 8\. ISBN 978-1-84033-655-9.
6. ^ "Prospect Tunnel". Forgotten relics of an enterprising age. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
7. ^ Catford, Nick (17 May 2017). "Crimple". Disused Stations. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
8. ^ a b Holland, Julian (2013). "Northern England". Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On: Memories of Britain's Lost Railways. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 135\. ISBN 9781446302675.
9. ^ Catford, Nick. "Wetherby Station 2nd site". Disused Stations. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
10. ^ 28 Days Later. Map of Royal Ordnance Factory No8., [1]. Retrieved 20 February 2012.
11. ^ Young, Alan (2015). Lost stations of Yorkshire; the West Riding. Kettering: Silver Link Publishing. p. 26\. ISBN 978-1-85794-438-9.
12. ^ Catford, Nick. "Stutton Station". Disused Stations. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
13. ^ Mitchell, Ian. "Mortimer's Turnips - The Stutton Papers, 1890 to 1898". Retrieved 9 May 2024.
14. ^ a b Suggitt 2005, p. 26.
15. ^ Davison, Phill (8 February 2008). "The Harrogate Underground". BBC York & North Yorkshire. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
16. ^ "Light at the end of the abandoned tunnel". Harrogate Advertiser. 7 February 2008. Archived from the original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
17. ^ Suggitt 2005, p. 23.
18. ^ "Harrogate Brunswick Tunnel". Forgotten relics of an enterprising age. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
19. ^ Jacobs, Gerald (2006). Railway track diagrams book 2: Eastern. Bradford-on-Avon: Trackmaps. p. 42D. ISBN 0-9549866-2-8.
20. ^ Historic England. "TADCASTER BRANCH RAILWAY (53043)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 3 October 2016.
21. ^ "Wetherby Railway Path" (PDF). Leeds City Council. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
22. ^ "The case for expanding the rail network" (PDF). Campaign for Better Transport. p. 42. Retrieved 22 April 2019.

### Bibliography

[edit]

* Suggitt, Gordon (2005). Lost Railways of North & East Yorkshire. Countryside Books. ISBN 978-1-85306-918-5.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Harrogate to Church Fenton Line.

* v
* t
* e

Railway lines in Yorkshire and the Humber

Primary|

| To London|

* East Coast Main Line
* Midland Main Line

|

To Exeter|

* Cross Country Route

Others|

| Inter-regional|

* Hallam Line
* Hope Valley line
* Leeds–Morecambe line
* Doncaster–Lincoln line
* Northallerton–Eaglescliffe line
* Sheffield–Lincoln line
* Settle–Carlisle line

|

Intra-regional|

* Airedale line
* Askern branch line
* Barton line
* Calder Valley line
* Dearne Valley line
* Esk Valley line
* Harrogate line
* Huddersfield line
* Hull–Scarborough
* Leeds–Bradford lines
* Leeds–Northallerton railway
* Penistone Line
* Pontefract line
* Selby Diversion
* Selby Line
* South Humberside Main Line
* Stocksbridge Railway
* Swinton–Doncaster
* Wakefield line
* Wharfedale line
* York–Scarborough

Defunct|

* Barnsley–Doncaster
* Bradford–Leeds & Wakefield
* Brockholes–Holmfirth
* Clayton West branch
* Dearne Valley Railway
* Gilling and Pickering
* Harrogate–Church Fenton
* Harrogate Gasworks Railway
* Huddersfield–Kirkburton
* Hull–Barnsley (Cudworth)
* Hull and Holderness
* Hull and Hornsea
* Knaresborough–York
* Leeds–Harrogate
* Low Moor–Mirfield
* Malton–Driffield
* Middlesbrough–Guisborough
* Middlesbrough–Guisborough–Normanby
* Huddersfield–Bradford
* Lockwood–Meltham
* Nunthorpe–Battersby
* Otley–Ilkley
* Pilmoor–Knaresborough
* Queensbury lines
* Rosedale Railway
* Royston to Thornhill
* Scarborough–Whitby
* Seamer–Pickering
* Selby–Driffield
* Selby–Goole
* Shipley Great Northern Railway branch line
* Sowerby Bridge–Rishworth
* Skipton–Grassington
* Skipton–Ilkley
* Spurn railway
* Thirsk and Malton line
* Wetherby–Cross Gates (Leeds)
* Whitby–Loftus
* Woodhead line
* York–Market Weighton–Beverley
* York–York (Foss Island)

Heritage|

* Derwent Valley Light Railway
* Elsecar Heritage Railway
* Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
* Keighley & Worth Valley Railway
* Middleton Railway
* North Bay Railway
* North Yorkshire Moors Railway
* Wensleydale Railway

Light railways|

* Colsterdale Light Railway
* Nidd Valley Light Railway
* North Holderness Light Railway
* Sand Hutton Light Railway
* Whistlestop Valley

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