Search for The Railway Children is over
CRAIG WRIGHT, chairman of the Goyt Valley Rail Users’ Association, puts the case for Strines station as the true inspiration for Edith Nesbit’s famous book
Steve Roberts, in his article on The Railway Children ( RAIL 845), surmises that Knockholt or Chelsfield were the inspiration for the station in the novel. We at the Edith Nesbit Society think differently.
Although the article acknowledges the possible claims of various railway stations, the organisation that was established in 1996 to celebrate the life and work of The Railway
Children author holds the view that Strines offers as good a match as anywhere to the descriptions in the book.
As a matter of fact, we in the Goyt Valley Rail Users’ Association strongly believe that this Great Manchester village station is a far better fit than any of the others. The Society was invited to Strines in 2000 to see and hear the evidence.
The RAIL article describes Edith Nesbit’s childhood, her early adult life and tempestuous marriage to Hubert Bland. Her husband had financial problems and Edith was compelled to turn to writing to support the family. She did this very successfully, writing for a number of magazines that published short stories and serialised books in large numbers in the late 19th century. And she wrote many of them when she was staying with her half-sister, Sarretta, and were often set in the area around Sarretta’s house -– above Strines station.
Sarretta was married to John Deakin, a manufacturers’ agent working in Manchester. They lived from 1882 at a house called Paradise, high on Cobden Edge above the station. John Wesley had preached from here and was so entranced with the view that he described it as ‘paradise’, hence the name of the Deakins’ house. Next door to Paradise is a cottage called Three Chimneys - the book’s home for The Railway Children.
Edith was very close to her sister, and she stayed with her frequently and for quite long periods. She loved the Goyt Valley and got to know it and its people well. Incidentally, Edith was quite a racy lady for her time. Her hair was cut short and she wore long, flowing dresses - and she was notorious for walking the area uncorsetted!
She became particularly friendly with the Woodcock family, who lived in Aspenshaw Hall about a mile from Paradise, near the village of Thornsett. The Woodcocks were dazzled by her unconventional and sophisticated ways and for a time kept a pony for Edith’s use. She based a number of novels and short stories on New Mills and the surrounding area, with place names thinly disguised - for example, ‘Old Mills’ and ‘Aspinshaw’. Unusually, in The Railway Children there are no clues in any of the place names to the identity of the station or nearby towns. But there are so many more pointers that place The Railway Children firmly in the Goyt Valley at Strines.
Let’s look at the case for Strines being the inspiration for the 1906 children’s novel.
This is the first view the Waterbury children get from their new home, Three Chimneys: “It was hilly country. Down below they could see the line of the railway, and the black yawning mouth of a tunnel. The station was out of sight. There was a great bridge with tall arches running across one end of the valley.” This is the view today. The tunnel is Marple South Tunnel, and the “great bridge” is Marple Goyt Viaduct. But as the story states, the station is not visible, being south of the viaduct.
Strines station is on the former Sheffield and Midland Joint Line. Marple, to the north, was the main station (at that time) for Midland Railway trains from St Pancras to split into Manchester, Liverpool and later Blackburn portions. But as well as main line trains there were Midland stoppers to Derby and Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS & L) local services from Hayfield to Manchester. The children in the book note this mixed bag of trains.
The station building (sadly long demolished) and its sidings, the coal heap and the signal box all match the book, too. There was no separate porters’ room but Strines was a small station and the booking office was used by all staff on the station and was accessed from the platform. The private owner coal wagon that Peter Waterbury noted, “Staveley Colliery”, was from a colliery on the Midland, just north of Chesterfield. That was much more likely to be seen at Strines than on a siding in southern England as suggested by other claimants.
The list of clues goes on. In the book, but not featured in the 1970 film directed by Lionel Jeffries, the children walk beyond the station to the other side of the valley and find a wharf on a canal. Here children off the boats throw coal at them. The Peak Forest Canal and location of the wharf are still there, on the other side of