Belper railway station

Belper railway station serves the town of Belper in Derbyshire, England. The station is located on the Midland Main Line from London St Pancras to Leeds via Derby, a little under 8 miles (13 km) north of Derby.

Belper
Belper station, 2005
General information
Location	Belper, Amber Valley England
Grid reference	SK348475
Managed by	East Midlands Railway
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	BLP
Classification	DfT category F1
History
Opened	1840
Passengers
2017/18	0.233 million
Interchange	2,259
2018/19	0.211 million
Interchange	2,831
2019/20	0.236 million
Interchange	2,676
2020/21	50,948
Interchange	620
2021/22	0.146 million
Interchange	2,545
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

History

 

Belper station platforms, as they were in 1961.

 

The cutting slices through a row of workers' houses.

 

Notice commemorating the refurbishment in 2005.

The line was surveyed by George Stephenson for the North Midland Railway Company, and opened in 1840. The Strutt family who had built cotton mills and had become the primary landowner, were great supporters of the line and had invested in it. They feared, however, that it would interfere with the water supply to the mill and affect both theirs and their employees' livelihood, so initially suggested in 1835 that the line should proceed by Holbrook.^[1]

This proved unsatisfactory and, in the 1836 Act authorising the line, the proposed route took it to the east of the Derwent through Milford then to the west past Belper. This "Milford Deviation" was still not acceptable, so a revised Act was approved in 1837.

This entailed the building of Milford Tunnel and the excavation of a long cutting, at enormous (and unexpected) expense, with eleven bridges in the space of a mile.^[2] The cutting, lined with gritstone, is now a grade 2 listed building.

North of Belper, the engineers paid the penalty of following a river valley, with two long bridges over Belper Pool, plus two more, before reaching Ambergate.

The original station was built on the south side of Belper, just before the cutting, designed by Francis Thompson in an Italianate design. A coach, or omnibus, ran regularly to it from the Lion Hotel in Bridge Street. However this proved so unpopular that the Midland Railway built a new station in 1878 within the cutting, at the town centre, next to King Street. This had platforms with access ramps for each of the two lines, both provided with waiting rooms, in the standard Midland Railway design. The booking office and other facilities were at street level. Since the new station lacked sidings, the old station remained in use for many years for the processing of goods traffic.

Originally the station was a stop on the Midland Railway's main line from London St Pancras to Manchester Central which travelled through the Peak District.

When this line was truncated to its present terminus at Matlock in the late 'sixties and following withdrawal of the Manchester trains, the station became unmanned and in 1973 the station buildings were demolished. The bridge carrying King Street over the line was widened to make room for a number of shops, including a supermarket which was originally Fine Fare and has subsequently had a number of occupiers, currently Poundland.

In 2005 the station was refurbished with new shelters, seats, train indicators and rubbish bins by a consortium of local volunteers, work experience trainees provided by The Groundwork Trust and the local councils, with the active support of Network Rail and Central Trains (who managed the station at that time). In April 2012 a group called Transition Belper adopted the station with the help of the Derwent Valley Line Community Rail Partnership, East Midlands Trains, Network Rail and Belper Town Council.^[3] The Community Rail Partnership continues to care for the station.^[4]

In 2009 an automatic ticket machine was installed on the Derby-bound platform, followed later by a second machine on the Matlock-bound side. These enable passengers to buy tickets (or collect those purchased in advance) before they board. In December 2009, Belper became a Penalty fare station. The penalty fare applies for any southbound travel and on northbound mainline services. The Ambergate to Matlock branch is not part of the penalty fare scheme. Where the local authority provides a discount, and if the vending machine is unable to issue discounted tickets, they can then be bought on the train.

Stationmasters

• Mr. Brandon ca. 1860^[5]
• Mr. Eden ca. 1861 ca. 1865
• John Orton until 1874
• Samuel Buxton 1875–1881 (formerly station master at Hassop)
• William Henry Buxton 1881–1896^[6] (afterwards station master at Lincoln)
• Richard William Mapp ca. 1897–1901 (afterwards station master at Gloucester)
• Thomas Pitt 1901–1905 (afterwards station master at St Albans)
• Henry Merryweather 1905–1924^[7]
• William Washbourne 1924–????
• Arthur H. Washbourne ca. 1934
• Henry Foster 1938–1947^[8]
• Edmund T. Jackson 1947–1955^[9] (formerly station master at Spondon)

Services

All services at Belper are operated by East Midlands Railway.

On weekdays the station is served by one train per hour in each direction between Matlock and Derby, with around half the services originating or ending in Nottingham. Saturdays also have an hourly service but all the trains originate or end in Derby.^[10]

There is also a single weekdays-only return service between Sheffield and London St Pancras International which is operated using a Class 222 Meridian.^[11]

On Sundays, there is a two-hourly service between Matlock and Nottingham in the morning, with services increasing to hourly from mid-afternoon onwards.^[10]

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Duffield		East Midlands Railway Derwent Valley Line		Ambergate
Derby		East Midlands Railway Midland Main Line Limited Service		Chesterfield

References

1. World Heritage News, Issue 14, 2014, Derwent Valley Mills Partnership
2. Stroud, Gill (2004). "Derbyshire Extensive Urban Survey Archaeological Assessment Report - Belper" (PDF). p. 8. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
3. [Transition Belper - Adopting Belper Railway Station http://www.transitionbelper.org/train%20station.html]
4. "About us: Derwent Valley CRP". Derwent Valley Community Rail Partnership. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
5. "1859-1866". Midland Railway Miscellaneous Depts: 58. 1914. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
6. "Complimentary Banquet and Presentation to the Late Belper Station Master". Long Eaton Advertiser. England. 4 April 1896. Retrieved 24 January 2021 – via British Newspaper Archive.
7. "Belper & District Topics". Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald. England. 24 May 1924. Retrieved 24 January 2021 – via British Newspaper Archive.
8. "Stationmaster at Belper". Derby Daily Telegraph. England. 27 August 1947. Retrieved 24 January 2021 – via British Newspaper Archive.
9. "48 years' service. Belper Stationmaster Retires". Belper News. England. 25 November 1955. Retrieved 24 January 2021 – via British Newspaper Archive.
10. "EMR regional train timetable: Matlock-Nottingham" (PDF). East Midlands Railway. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
11. . belpernews.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 May 2016. Retrieved 31 May 2014.

Further reading

• Pixton, B., (2000) North Midland: Portrait of a Famous Route, Cheltenham: Runpast Publishing
• The North Midland Railway Guide, (1842) Republished 1973, Leeds: Turntable Enterprises
• Naylor, P. (Ed) (2000) An Illustrated History of Belper and its Environs Belper: M.G.Morris

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Belper railway station.

• Train times and station information for Belper railway station from National Rail
• "Picture the Past" Original Station at Belper
• "Picture the Past" Belper Station circa 1910
• "Picture the Past" Station building c.1955

Coordinates: 53°01′30″N 1°28′59″W / 53.025°N 1.483°W / 53.025; -1.483