Blasts from the past – as restored railway station house is reopened
IN 1954, one of Yorkshire’s most attractive and significant country stations closed to passengers.
Leeming Bar was a victim of the mothballing of the Wensleydale Railway as a mainline, and although part of the line re-opened to trains as a heritage operation in 2003, passengers were never able to enter the Grade II-listed station house.
Now, following an injection of National Lottery funding, the parcels office, ticket office, waiting room and even the stationmaster’s private accommodation have been restored to their 1920s heyday and they reopened yesterday.
The long-running project has been propped up by the hard work of volunteers, who managed to track down original parts of the station apparatus that were thought to have been lost forever.
After the Wensleydale Railway successfully restored Scruton Station to its Edwardian, turnof-the-century glory, it settled on the period immediately following World War One for Leeming Bar – though as community engagement officer Will Burnham points out, the roaring 1920s didn’t shout too loudly in the rural Dales.
“The station has changed massively. Leeming Bar was tumbledown and in danger of falling to pieces. It was an admin hub of the railway, with offices for staff, but it wasn’t publicly accessible and it had damp, no heating and was in a really sorry state. But it has so much history and you could see the character that still seeped through.
“We picked the 1920s because it was a period of massive change for the railways, with the line becoming part of the LNER in the new groupings.
“In future we plan to restore more stations to reflect other periods and show the passage of time.”
It has so much history, you could see the character that seeped through. Will Burnham, community engagement officer at Wensleydale Railway