WARTHILL STATION

Position on the line

From the Railway Chronicle :- On 15th September 1847 a number of Y&NMR directors and people connected with the building, inspected the line to Market Weighton. They included Messrs. Barstow, Richardson, Davies, Birkenhaw, Andrews and Cabrey. Part of the line was described - "....reaches York & Malton road at near to the fourth milestone. Here the distance to York will be 4 miles 5 furlongs. Next Stockton Lane is crossed, being approached by a slight curve, the line running on the level: and at the point where it crosses the road from Hemsley to Stockton being nearly 6 miles from York the Stockton station is erected, at about 1/4 mile from that village. Here will be coal depots and villages of Holtby, Sand Hutton, Warthill etc. will more or less participate in the advantages resulting from this station. Taking a slight curve and still on the level it crosses a lane leading to Warthill.....".

Warthill station was six miles from York station and 36 from Hull, situated between Earswick station, a long run of 3 m. 1168 yds towards York, and after a slight 1 in 290 climb into a deep cutting through Helmsley Hill and Rise Wood then beneath a road bridge, Holtby station, 1 m.1632 yds. towards Market Weighton/Hull.

The station in approx 2002

Station Time Line

The station was opened under the name of Stockton on 4 October 1847 by the York and North Midland Railway Co., the date their York to Market Weighton line started running a service and served the villages of Stockton-on-the-Forest and Warthill.

On 1st May 1865, the section of line between Market Weighton & Beverley was opened giving a through service to Hull.

In April 1867 the station now under the control of the North Eastern Railway Co. was renamed Stockton Forest.

About 1870 it was renamed Stockton-On-Forest.

On 1st February 1872 it under went its final rename to Warthill.

(NOTE - efforts were made to make staff aware of the conflicting station names around the country. The Regulations of the Railway Clearing House printed in January 1864 contained a list of confusing railway station names "with a request that the Companies will give careful attention to the proper loading of the Goods, and the ticketing of the Through Waggons." To add to the confusion of station names our station was listed as Stockton-on-Forest, three years before 'Forest' was added and six years before being officially called "Stockton on Forest" )

In 1904 the station provided the following services, Goods Station, Passenger & Parcel Station, Live Stock, Horse Boxes and Prize Cattle Vans, and Carriages by Passenger Train.

(Carriages referred to the gentry's road carriages which could be placed on open flat trucks. This system ensured privacy and also a method of transport away from the station on arrival. In later years passengers rode inside the train and both horsed and horseless carriages were transported. These trucks were usually fitted with vacuum brakes as they were conveyed in passenger trains. Their use died out after WWI.)

1922 became a terminus of the SHLR

In 1923 under regrouping the station came under the control of the London & North Eastern Railway Co..

1932 SHLR closed

In 1953 Warthill station level crossing became the first in Britain to be equipped with Continental style lifting barriers.

The station was closed to passenger traffic on 5th January 1959.

Goods Services finished on 7th June 1965 the same date at the station was permanently closed.

The line was closed to all services on 29th November 1965.

Warthill station was converted into a dwelling, where the signal box made a fine garage.

11 Sept 2009 Signal box sold with planning authority to turn into a single bedroom dwelling with an extention based on an old railway coach?

Warthill Station

In 1909 Warthill station was described as a lonely place on a common with nothing but a rectory for company and with the rambling village of Stockton-on-the-Forest a mile away to the southwest (Kelly's Directory quotes 1 mile up to 1879, 3/4 mile up to 1925). This must have been its situation for nearly all its working life as it is only recent development that has brought the village right up to the station site.

Warthill village doesn't come into the picture, being a right turn north of the station, then a further right at the crossroads and straight on over a different level crossing. The station was so named to avoid confusion with the station at Stockton (of Stockton to Darlington fame)

The level crossing at the west (York) end of the station had the signal box on the north/Down (from York) side along with the main station building. This was a G. T. Andrews standard design, reasonably well-appointed  station buildings and station master's house, with the long side end-on and two storeyed with a bay window to the platform. Passengers crossed at the level crossing from the booking hall to simple timber waiting shelter of standard NER design on the south/Up platform.

Up until after the war years (WWII) the station was dimly lit with paraffin lamps.

George Townsend Andrew's Station Style Features that became a trademark of Andrew's designs for stations include - a two storey house ranged parallel to the road at a level crossing, coupled with chimneys linked by a prominent arch and in the gable a coupled pair of small round arched windows. Some had an entrance portico and bay window. During the period 1845-8 his designs had settled down and most stations were located at level crossings and took the form of a three-bay, two-storey house with its principal frontage to the road. A short one storey office range extended behind, along the platform, the office roof normally being continued down onto cast-iron columns to provide some shelter. The domestic accommodation was spacious, without being unduly large by the standards of the time. A sitting room was provided on the ground floor, with a kitchen projecting to the side or rear, and there were three bedrooms upstairs. There were no bathrooms of course and water was commonly drawn by hand pump from an individual well. The platform end of the main range was occupied by the office, with a canted bay window giving the stationmaster a view along both tracks. There seems to have been either one or two waiting rooms originally, and these were often augmented later by extensions to the platform wing. Except where stone was a traditional material, the stations were built of local clamp brick, with contrasting lintels of a finely-jointed orange gauged brick. Plinths were normally of Bramley Fall gritstone, cills of sandstone, while a deep sandstone plat band was usually employed. Shallow-pitched roofs, with a considerable overhang, contributed to the markedly Italianate appearance of these modest villas, further enhanced by the common provision of coupled chimneys. The roadside facade centred on the entrance, which was most frequently emphasised by a bold sandstone doorcase, which is a simplified version of the entrance to the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. In exceptional cases a small portico was provided with four square columns and responding pilasters, which masked the presence of two doorways; public and private.

The main rail crossover was between the two outlets to the goods facilities. These was a small goods yard equipped with two sidings which ran to the road, one on either side; one up to the loading dock and one up to what was called the 'Sack Shed' where all the grain was stored and further down beyond the ramp where the coal was stored were two more long sidings which went up as far as the end of the wood, two sidings on the left hand side going up towards Hull and sometimes goods wagons and trains would be shunted into there. (the long sidings were an addition/alteration from the time of the SHLR. The entrance to the goods yard was along Sandy Lane on the other side of the station house from the track. There was a weigh office and weigh bridge at the rear of the yard opposite the coal drops.

During the 1940/50s, and most likely well before then the station master ran the coal business as well as running the station. The weigh house where the coal was weighed still stands. Villagers had to collect their coal from the bunkers which were where the trains used to come up the incline, open up underneath and dump the coal into the‘coal cells' as they were called.

Things changed in 1922. For a time Warthill was an interchange with Sir Robert Walker's Sand Hutton Light Railway, a 1 ft 6 in. gauge line serving his estate which ran to the villages of Sand Hutton and Bossall, with a branch to Claxton brickworks. The SHLR station, a simple halt plus a runround loop, was situated behind the main line station yard. There was no platform just a gravel path which ran alongside the track at the back of the stationmaster's garden with a simple nameboard. Further east there were sidings to a transshipment dock with the standard gauge. The light railway closed in 1932 but the standard gauge sidings to the transshipment dock remained in use, mainly for sugar beet from surrounding fields.

The first lifting barriers to be used on a level crossing in this country appeared at Warthill during 1953, quite why just here is not certain, however the NER at York were known as trend setters. It was claimed that the barriers would reduce the heavy costs of mechanically operated gates.

Station Cottages

Besides the Station and accommodation for the station master a pair of station cottages were provided for other railway personel. These included station staff like porters and signalmen as well as other workers like platelayers.

1851 Railway Gate (next station) Elizabeth Croft widow (of Thomas Croft who had been an Ag Lab in 1841 and possible died 1851)
1851 Railway Gate Robert Dickenson Railway Plate Layer
1851 -71 Railway Gate Mathew Burn Railway Labourer (three properties named Railway Gate in 1851 Census)
1871 -81 Railway Station George Robinson Railway Plate Layer
1881 - 1901 George Nelson Railway Plate Layer
1891 - 1901 Alfred Hardley Railway Plate Layer
mid 1940s Jim Simms Railway Head Ganger
1946 - John Elmer Signalman
1950s Ken Collinson Signal man
Ken Collinson and John Elmer, signalmen were in residence when the line closed. As a result they were able to buy their homes and both are still with their families (2010).

The Carriages (Newton's House)

While not directly connected to the railway over the road from the Station Cottages, on the land next to the first village Tennis Court in the Vicarage Paddock, was built a house of railway carriages. It was two railway carriages joined together with the middle filled in and used as a dwelling called 'Newton House'. It was still there when Rhodes bought the land. (Not known why it was called Newton as Newton wasn't station master until 1950's and I can find no record of a Newton before then)

1939ish

In 1939 the station house had not changed much since it had been built. There was no indoor toilets, but in the yard were two buckets side by side, one serving the gents on the station and the other one was serving the station house. The house one was replaced with an 'Elsan' at some time. Washing had to be done in a copper in one of the outhouses. There was also a scullery outside in the backyard where the washing up was done. There was a kitchen range and a sort of Pantry with a stone slab on The living room had shutters on for the winter with coal fires. It is believed there was a bath upstairs, but there was no downstairs water, it was all upstairs and if there any hot water it came from the kitchen range there certainly was not anything else. There was little in the way of hygiene as known today, all the water from sinks went into the dtch, and when the buckets and things were emptied into a sort of heap for spreading out on the fields. When the strong wind was in the west it blew sand alI over the fields etc..

There was a pig sty just past the crossing on the right hand side about fifty metres along where a couple of pigs were kept in 1945 or 46, there used to be a bridge across the Beck before it was culverted in, and beyond that was a 'Sleeper Shed,' the sleepers, believed to have come from the old Sand Hutton Light Railway which was taken up in 1932, had been put together to build a sort of shed.

Modernisation of facilities at the Station came in the later part of 1947. Birch the builders did the work putting in a septic tank in the goods yard giving indoor sanitation, and a kitchen for the first time was built in what had been the scullery doing away with washing up outside.

"It was the Broadley's who did the first makeover of the station turning the Waiting room, Gents toilet, Back Yard Extending out round the back and if you look closely you can see where the original house was and this little lean-to on the back and the Portico over the Front Door is a classical North Eastern Railway entrance". (didn't understand the quote - does it mean the big extention?)

(General Comments) (Warthill related)

Around 1901 the NER introduced a range of chocolate and cream signs and nameboards to provide directions etc. In October 1901 instructions were issued to stationmasters to see that the new signs were properly washed.

In 1905 the NER standardised their ¼, ½, ¾ & mileposts which were required by Art of Parliament passed in 1845. The new posts were made of cast iron and at the same time a matching Distance Point or Datum Post was introduced which had to be set up at the centre of station buildings on intermediate stations and by the buffers at terminuses.

Traffic

Goods

As livestock traffic diminished, the cattle docks found new uses as general loading docks. End loading bays, originally used for loading carriage trucks, proved especially useful in modern times for handling motor vehicles and farm machinery.

During 1913 the amounts of goods traffic loaded included Potatoes 532 tons, Hay/Clover 378 tons, Barley 342 tons as well as 40 wagons of livestock.

But the most fascinating and best known private source of traffic was the Sand Hutton Light Railway. During the 1920's until its closure in 1932 it provided much interchange traffic at Warthill. It was a common sight to see the little SHLR engines busy in the sidings, shunting traffic for or from the LNER wagons. Inward traffic included coal, fertilisers, farm implements, general merchandise and livestock while outgoing traffic was mainly farm produce such as carrots, potatoes, sugar beet, corn, hay, straw and livestock, and bricks and pipes from Claxton brickworks.

In the 1940s it was always busy with all sorts of traffic, there would be Sugar Beet going away, shoddy coming from the West Riding Woollen Mills to be picked up by the farmers, and potatoes; cattle and horses, the horse boxes used to be parked on the 'Dock',

Being an agricultural area, much seasonal traffic was dispatched from all depots along the line. This included grain and potatoes, carrots, and sugar beet which was so heavy that at the height of the season a daily beet train ran, even on Saturdays, often warranting an engine as large as a WD 2-8-0. It would ply the York-Market Weighton line picking up loaded wagons for the York factory and setting down empties.

In postwar years the carrot traffic grew to major proportions with heavy consignments from Market Weighton, Fangfoss and Warthill. This traffic became so heavy at the peak of the harvest season that the morning Hull to York express goods would stop to attach loaded vans, many of them destined for Glasgow.

The York-Market Weighton pick-up ran on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Following withdrawal of the Selby line's own pickup beyond Cliff Common Derwent Valley Railway interchange, this train also served Everingham and Holme Moor depots until they closed on 2nd August, 1964. Normally leaving York around 9 am, it reached Pocklington about an hour later, where it would spend some time shunting the yard. The crew usually took advantage of a halt in proceedings to let the 10.10 York-Hull and 9.45 Hull-York passenger trains pass by collecting a well-earned brew from the signal box. Conversely, the returning pickup would often be held in the Pocklington Up loop to let the Hull-York parcels by.

Passenger

1885, it was still common for gentry to take their horses and carriages with them, especially on country lines and most trains conveyed horse boxes and carriage trucks which were attached or detached at intermediate stations - even on so called limited or non-stop expresses. It is known that this facility was available at Warthill in 1904 but as a general rule this practice had virtually died by the start of WWI and was not resurrected in peace time.

In 1911 the station served a population of 819 and issued 6476 tickets throughout the year.

The Station was extremely busy during WWII as there were about six passenger trains and many goods and military trains moving between York and Hull.

Station Life

In 1895 the Directors of the NER introduced a competition and awarded prizes for the Best Kept Wayside Stations (to encourage station staff to plant and grow flowers etc.). The competition was divided into four areas with 15 cash prizes for each area. In 1907 this was changed to include all stations in one competition. There is an occasional reference in the NER's Magazine under the heading Garden Railways.
In the October 1911 edition it was noted that Warthill had received a Beginners Class award and a prize of £5.
In the October 1912 edition it was noted that Warthill had received a Third Class award and a prize of £2.
In the October 1913 edition it was noted that Warthill had received a Second Class award and a prize of £3.
The event was not run in 1914 due to the war. Whether Warthill would have received a First is debatable as they don't appear to have taken part when the event was resurrected in 1920. However in 1921 they again received a Beginners Class award and a prize of £5. The event then disappears from the magazine, but in 1924, now the LNER, a list of the First Class awards are given and a note to say that as the results have already been broadcast by circular they will not be reprinted in the magazine. The LNER and BR continued the competition, but while we know from photo's there was still a patch of garden during the 1950's whether the staff had any other successes are currently unknown.

Part of the Station Master's work outside the station was going to inspect the Warthill Gate and Crosslands Lane Gate level crossings. He was not provided with transport for doing this and so depending on the period if he couldn't afford a horse, car or bicycle he had to walk.

WWII

Wartime winters seem to have been bad with some pretty horrendous falls of snow. On a morning of absolute stillness, total silence, just a landscape of snow, there would be a roar and round the bend would come the 'Snow Plough Train' with snow spewing out from side to side keeping the track open.

For part of WWII the Army were billited in 'The Kerrisons field' near to the station and the soldiers were keen to come up to the station to use the station loo and facilities; the 'Latrines'. The porters went on strike because they had to empty the 'Bucket' every so often.

Although there were no specific air raids on the village, there were incidents seen over head due to the railway line being an easy option for German bombers to follow to get to targets in York. However on the night of Wednesday 29th April 1942 as part of the German Baedeker air-raids targetting strategically relatively unimportant but picturesque cities in England, which had been awarded three stars by the German Baedeker Tourist Guide to Britain, some of the JU88's of Luftwaffe Luftflotte 3 followed the railway line back from York and attempted to bomb Warthill station. Many of the bombs landed near the Rectory and Rector Jack Cobham and family had to be evacuated to Hazelbush House. The bombs were Butterfly Bombs (Anti Personnel Bombs) that were about six inches across with wings that used to fly through the air spreading over a large area when they were released from a retaining canister. One of these canisters lodged under Midgley's house by some railway carriages. The Butterfly Bombs spread over a large area including Hazelwood House woods, Brecks Wood and Warthill. The road was closed from Barr Lane down to the Station House because of these bombs. For six months afterwards the fields were out of bounds as the Bomb Disposal people went round clearing up. Tales have it that there are still some of these bombs lying out there undiscovered although the last known incident where somebody was injured when one blew up in the field in which they were ploughing was back in the 1950s.

Modern Times 2011