Hartington Station sited across the boundaries of Hartington Town Quarter and Hartington Nether Quarter Parish Councils At the time Hartington Station was constructed at the close of the nineteenth century, its builder, the London and North-western Railway Company [LNWR] was regarded as the ‘Premier Line’, the greatest railway enterprise in the country. So why did it bother with the insertion of thirteen miles of rural track between Parsley Hay and Ashbourne? Primarily it was because the LNWR regarded it as a ‘missing link’ in its desire to provide a competitive alternative route between Manchester and London, via Buxton, Ashbourne and Uttoxeter, helping to alleviate the pressure on the ever-busier existing lines between the two great cities; local traffic was very much a secondary objective.

It is a curiosity that a station was built at Hartington, almost two miles from the village, but not at Biggin, where the line passed close by. Biggin was a smaller settlement in 1899 than it is today but a station was improbably provided for the even tinier community of Alsop-en-le-Dale; the LNWR probably had an eye on developing tourism in nearby Dovedale and serving the larger settlement of Alstonefield which, like Hartington, lay about two miles away. Whatever the reasons, Hartington was quite a grand example of rural station architecture, soundly constructed with, for example, Canadian Red Cedar timber for the platforms. The picture displays its resplendent character on the line’s opening day, 1st August, 1899. The gentleman stood beside his personal saloon carriage  was Francis William Webb, the LNWR Company’s Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent. This distinguished gentleman is in the other picture [the one of the opening day party], slightly standing out from the crowd on the extreme right in his natty waistcoat and distinctive top hat [most photographs of F. W. Webb, over many years, seem to feature the very same hat].

It is a curiosity that a station was built at Hartington, almost two miles from the village, but not at Biggin, where the line passed close by. Biggin was a smaller settlement in 1899 than it is today but a station was improbably provided for the even tinier community of Alsop-en-le-Dale; the LNWR probably had an eye on developing tourism in nearby Dovedale and serving the larger settlement of Alstonefield which, like Hartington, lay about two miles away. Whatever the reasons, Hartington was quite a grand example of rural station architecture, soundly constructed with, for example, Canadian Red Cedar timber for the platforms. The picture displays its resplendent character on the line’s opening day, 1st August, 1899. The gentleman stood beside his personal saloon carriage  was Francis William Webb, the LNWR Company’s Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent. This distinguished gentleman is in the other picture [the one of the opening day party], slightly standing out from the crowd on the extreme right in his natty waistcoat and distinctive top hat [most photographs of F. W. Webb, over many years, seem to feature the very same hat].

 

The article in the previous edition of News and Views recorded the grand opening in 1899 of the Parsley Hay to Ashbourne railway line at Hartington Station, and the London and North Western Railway Company’s failed ambition to upgrade it into an alternative route for trains between Manchester and London. From the 1920s the line settled into a pattern of local services, typically including up to eight return passenger trains each day between Buxton, Ashbourne and Uttoxeter. Competitive local buses had reduced the trains to three per day by the time British Railways ceased its passenger schedule in November 1954. The line remained open for freight and excursion trains until final closure in October 1963 [Hartington to Ashbourne] and 1967 [Buxton to Hartington].

Today it is hard to imagine Hartington Station as a bustling place but Derek Horobin, who was born in Station Cottages in 1942 and lived all his life at No.4, remembered a childhood more-or-less surrounded by industrial activity, with Station Quarry to the rear of the house, wagons being loaded with limestone almost outside the back door; the railway station at the front, the platform trolleys loaded with cheeses and milk churns; and the coal merchants’ collection point sandwiched in between.

Hartington Station, 4-9-1962, one of the last passenger-carrying trains. Photo courtesy of J. W. Sutherland

In 2014 Irene Wibberley recalled that she  attended  Queen  Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Ashbourne, from 1934 until 1942. Her home was then Rock Cottage, high above Wolfscote Dale; on schooldays she rose from her bed, walked to Hartington Station to catch the train, went to school, caught the train home, walked to Rock Cottage [always along the lanes rather than the footpaths – you might get a lift!], had tea, did her homework, and went to bed. Irene also recollected that during World War Two the Monday morning trains to Ashbourne conveyed pupils from Manchester Grammar School who ‘boarded’ at QEGS before returning to Manchester on Friday afternoons.

 

We are delighted to receive this feedback from Mary Sherratt, now living in Lincolnshire, who receives N&V by post. “I attended Ashbourne Grammar School -1940-45, catching the 8.08am train, returning on the 4.30pm. I lived at Church View, Miss Twigg on Hyde Lane, domestic science teacher, had a Ford car and kindly gave me lifts to the station. It was wartime, petrol was rationed; she was allowed sufficient coupons to travel to and from the station, sometimes enough for a full run. The snow was often a challenge but no excuses for Miss Twigg, school expects, wherever she went so must When the snow was really deep, I would follow, walking in her footsteps and then a long wait if the train was stuck in the Hindlow tunnel. The station master, Mr Robinson (Sally Oliver infant teacher at Hartington School, father) had a good fire in the waiting room. The coaches were single compartments, no corridor and no toilets”.

Audrey Morson (nee Gee) also remembers walking to Hartington Station to attend school in Ashbourne in the early 1950s, until the trains were withdrawn in 1954. Jennifer Brindley (nee Hall) now of Biggin, recalls her father Ted Hall (village Butcher) and Arthur Gee (Nettletor Farm) alternating in giving lifts to the station for Jennifer Hall, Jean Gould (Poole Hall) and Lesley and Margaret Lloyd (daughters of the Doctor) to catch the train to attend Cavendish Grammar School Buxton and Audrey to travel to Ashbourne to attend secretarial college. This was from 1952, until 1954 when the early morning bus became operational.

The line south of Hartington closed 7 October 1963. Derbyshire Railway Society wanted to buy and preserve the line but negotiations failed in the summer of 1964. The line from Hartington south through Ashbourne to Rocester Junction was taken up and all fittings removed in the autumn 1964. Some of the “navvies” who worked to remove the lines had “lodgings” at the Devonshire Arms, where Liz Broomhead [Nadin] lived. She remembers their gentle Irish brogue, mountains of porridge consumed and the monthly pay day celebrations with a drop of whisky.

Hartington retained its line to the north partly because of private arrangements for Hartshead Quarry [adjacent to Station Quarry] to transport stone by rail, but that quarry closed in 1966. The other reason for keeping the line open was that the railway delivered by tender from Buxton, water for domestic use at Station Cottages. This need became redundant when the cottages were linked to mains water supply in 1967 [the last water train ran on 5/9/67]. The tracks and fittings north of Hartington were thus taken up by contractors Henry Boot between

July and October 1969, although the signal box at Hartington has been retained for preservation.