Station Name: ST. ANN'S WELL

[Source: Simon Swain & Nick Catford]


Date opened: 2.12.1889
Location: East side of Knightsthorpe Close
Company on opening: Nottingham Suburban Railway Company
Date closed to passengers: 1.7.1916
Date closed completely: 1.8.1951
Company on closing: Nottingham Suburban Railway Company
Present state: Demolished with the exception of stationmaster's house located at the junction of The Wells Road and Dooland Drive
County: Nottinghamshire
OS Grid Ref: SK5884220
Date of visit: 9 April 2009, 19 April 2011 & 20 July 2014

Notes: The station was situated on the western side of The Wells Road and built between two tunnels, Thorneywood (408 yd) to the south and Sherwood (442 yd) to the north. The land for the station approach from The Wells Road was given to the Nottingham Suburban Railway Company by Nottingham City Corporation, who paid half of the maintenance costs. Additionally the historical St. Ann's Well was demolished to accommodate the railway. Opened on 2 December 1889 the station consisted of two facing platforms built linked by a wrought iron lattice girder bridge supported on cast iron columns. As planned the station was to be called The Wells Road, but by the time it opened this has been changed to St. Ann's Well. The station handled a full range of goods traffic including livestock.

Unlike Thorneywood and Sherwood stations the up platform was of wooden construction giving it more of a temporary impression. The single-storey brick booking office and main waiting room was located on the down side. A brick waiting room stood on the up side with brick foundations on solid ground below the timber platform. Both platforms had wooden protective canopies attached to the buildings by ornamental brackets. The 30-lever signal box was situated beyond the end of the up platform; this was opened with the station in 1889, but from October 1904 was operated by the stationmaster only when required to deal with traffic. Behind the signal box was the goods yard comprising three loop sidings with a brick goods shed between them. The shed had two canopies, one over the siding that passed it and one on the other side for the benefit of road vehicles loading or unloading in the yard. There was also a short siding on the down side serving the cattle dock behind the north end of the platform. The stationmaster's house was opposite the entrance to the goods yard in The Wells Road. Both the house and the station buildings were designed by TC Hine.

Nottingham City Corporation Tramways began operating an electric tramcar to St. Ann's Well in February 1902 compounding the competitive effect that the arrival, in 1899, of the Great Central Railway had had upon passenger services. Consequently, owing to poor patronage, the station was closed to passenger traffic on 1 July 1916.

After closure the station fell into disrepair with the station buildings and platforms slowly being demolished. In February 1930 the down line was lifted through the station, and at this time the platform was cut back. Surprisingly the wooden platform remained on the up side. In 1935 the goods yard was still handling a significant amount of traffic, much of it for Mapperley Hospital. It continued to do so until closure, although it was the quietest of the three stations on the line with 1,096 loaded wagons being received but only eight being forwarded. Dawson's Salt and Firelighter Works was located alongside the stationmaster's house and they had their own entrance into the goods yard. There were still four local coal merchants operating from the yard at this time. The up platform building was used as an additional goods shed hired out to Earles Cement merchant.

The station house was occupied by stationmaster E Potts who was responsible for all three stations on the line.

By the time that the line was closed in August 1951 only the down platform buildings and goods shed remained. In the late 1960s the substantial skew-arch bridge, which took the line southwards over The Wells Road, was demolished. The station site was redeveloped in the early 1970s, but by 2011 the flats which were built had been demolished and in 2014 a new housing development is under construction.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NOTTINGHAM SUBURBAN RAILWAY
In the 1880s, the city of Nottingham had expanded into its surrounding villages and hamlets which, in turn, had grown into suburbs. These needed to be connected to the rail network. At this time the only competition to the railways came from horse-drawn trams and omnibuses which were slow, could only carry light loads and not travel long distances.

The 1860s and 1870s had seen the unrivalled success of the London underground railway system and its associated commuter lines so, in the late 1880s, a group of Nottingham businessmen felt that the creation of a railway on similar principles would benefit the city’s rapidly growing suburbs.

Historical development
The Great Northern Railway had opened its Derbyshire extension line into Nottingham in 1878; however its principal concern had been to link up the numerous coal mines to passenger traffic. In addition, trains had to make a 7¼-mile circuitous journey from Nottingham, first travelling eastwards to Colwick  (later known as Netherfield & Colwick) before heading north-west through Gedling, Mapperley and Daybrook to Basford which, on a direct route, was a mere 3¼ miles from the city centre. The Nottingham Suburban Railway, so its backers thought, could complement the Great Northern’s extension line as well as providing a more direct route into the city. An agreement was arrived at whereby the GN would work the proposed line, providing all the locomotives, rolling stock and staff; in return it would retain 55% of the gross receipts.  Despite this arrangement, it is worthy of note that the Nottingham Suburban Railway company remained an independent entity until 1 January 1923 when it was absorbed by the London & North Eastern Railway.

Passengers were not the only motivation for building the line. One of the leading promoters, Robert Mellors, was chairman of the Nottingham Patent Brickwork Company whose works were on the proposed route at Thorneywood, and it was put forward that a branch be built to serve them. This plan received approval from a director of the company, Edward Parry, who would go on to become the line’s chief surveyor and structural engineer. The branch would become the only one of note from the line, running a distance of just 198yd, of which 110 were in a tunnel taking it beneath Thorneywood Lane before climbing an inclined plane along which wagons were hauled to and from the brickworks.

The company obtained its Acts during 1886 and these were strongly supported by Nottingham City Council. By October 1886 Parry had surveyed and staked out the route. Construction work began in June 1888. Some 3¾-mile in length, it ran from a junction with the Great Northern Railway at Trent Lane and headed north to another junction with the GN’s Derbyshire extension line at Daybrook. Intermediate stations were built at Thorneywood, St Ann’s Well and Sherwood.
Because of the hilly terrain, the railway proved extremely costly to build, with one-sixth of it built in four tunnels, the longest being just over quarter of a mile long. In addition, there were seven brick-arched bridges, nine girder bridges of which three were over 100ft in span, eight culverts and numerous retaining walls, embankments and cuttings. Construction costs were increased by a third as the Midland Railway insisted that all bridges carrying the line over its metals were at least 50ft wide whilst the Great Northern demanded a flyover at Trent Lane to avoid conflicts on their Nottingham-Grantham line.

Despite these adversities, the line was completed by 23 November 1889 and opened both to passenger and goods traffic on 2 December of that year.

Operational history, decline and closure
In 1890 there were ten trains per day running out of London Road along the line to Daybrook, four of which continued through to Newstead. In the opposite direction were nine trains of which four originated from Newstead. There was no Sunday service. The journey time from Nottingham to Daybrook was a very respectable 13 minutes. By 1895 there was a through train to Ilkeston which, on Fridays, was extended to Derby Friargate.

Unfortunately, within a little more than ten years, two developments occurred that would render the Nottingham Suburban Railway superfluous. The first was the arrival of the Great Central Railway which, in 1900, had opened up an even more direct route into Nottingham. Trains along the GC’s own Leen Valley railway could run directly from Newstead via Bulwell, New Basford and Carrington into Victoria Station, thus cutting out the lengthy negotiations of Daybrook Junction and Leen Valley Junction on the Great Northern route.

The second was the introduction of the electric tram. Horse-drawn trams had been operating in Nottingham since September 1878; however the arrival of the electric tram offered a quicker, more frequent service than the trains. The first route opened to Sherwood - running along Mansfield Road close to Sherwood Station - on 1 January 1901. Extensions to St Ann’s came on 21 February 1902, Thorneywood on 16 December 1910 and Daybrook on 1 January 1915. With their comparatively light loads and easy acceleration, the trams could negotiate the gradients in the hilly east of Nottingham more easily than steam locomotives.  Indeed the clanging of the tram bell would, in the coming years, often sound the death-knell for many a suburban railway station.

A third factor was offered to Railway Magazine (August 1961) by a correspondent, J P Wilson, as an addendum to an article about the Nottingham Suburban Railway in the magazine two months earlier. He noted that the line traversed one of the few areas of the city of Nottingham where little housing development had taken place by the start of World War I. Only Thorneywood station was at all conveniently situated when the line was open, while St Ann’s Well was particularly remote. He added: ‘In the last thirty years small housing estates have come near to all three stations, far too late in the day to have any influence. One can only conclude that the whole project was something of a gamble, especially as to passenger traffic’.

The 1 in 49 gradient from Trent Lane Junction, which was also on a curve, posed particular problems for the GN’s Stirling 0-4-4 tanks which worked the line. In order to achieve faster journey times than the trams, some of the suburban services were run non-stop from London Road to Daybrook. By 1914, whilst there were still eight trains per day each way along the line, only four of these stopped at the intermediate stations. For example, St Ann’s Well saw departures for Basford & Bulwell at 7.55am and, to Shirebrook, at 9.11am, 1.20pm and 4.58pm. In the opposite direction, trains departed for Nottingham at 8.24am, 2.21pm and 6.01pm. It is also worthy of note that other trains passed through the station at 11.38am, 8.40pm and 9.50pm en route to Shirebrook and to Nottingham at 10.36am, 12.59pm, 9.20pm and 10.41pm. Even before the closure of the intermediate stations - which at this time was less than two years away - more passenger trains passed through than stopped. One can only imagine the long-deserted platforms at St Ann’s Well which, just a few years earlier, had anticipated unprecedented numbers of customers.

As a supposed wartime economy measure, the three intermediate stations were closed to passenger traffic on 13 July 1916 and, thereafter, just two trains a day along the Leen Valley route used the line. After the war it became evident that the Great Northern had little interest in promoting services along the line nor reopening the intermediate stations. Bradshaw of July 1922 shows that, just prior to grouping, only three trains passed daily over the line.

On 25 January 1925 the collapse of Mapperley Tunnel on the Great Northern extension brought a brief flurry of activity for the Nottingham Suburban when all Leen Valley passenger and coal traffic was diverted over the line whilst repairs were effected.

Also, on 10 July 1928, their majesties King George V and Queen Mary opened the Royal Show at Wollaton Park and the new university buildings. Between these two events their majesties reviewed a huge gathering of school children in Woodthorpe Park. As the nearest station was Sherwood, both Thorneywood and Sherwood stations were renovated and re-staffed for the occasion. This made it possible for 6,550 of the 17,500 children and 284 of their teachers to be brought in on 13 special trains. It is ironic that, on that one day, the two stations saw more activity than they had ever done during their operational days.

The line was converted to single track with the removal of the down line on 9 February 1930 when the signal box at Sherwood was closed and all signalling removed. The line was then worked by staff who unlocked the ground frames controlling the siding connections. Not long after, the footbridges and canopies were removed from the stations, a clear indication that they would never reopen. The last passenger train to use the line was the 5.05pm Nottingham Victoria to Shirebrook via Trent Lane Junction on 14 September 1931. Services had lasted just 41 years, with the intermediate stations faring even worse with an operational life of just 26½ years.

The next misfortune to befall the line occurred on the night of 8 May 1941 when, during Nottingham’s worst air raid of the Second World War, considerable damage was done in the Sneinton area. A bomb landed on the southern section of the line damaging a bridge over the Midland Railway and blowing away part of the embankment. This was never repaired and buffer stops were erected at either side, effectively creating two dead ends.

Subsequently the goods service along the line was reduced to a thrice weekly pick-up, carrying domestic coal between Daybrook and Thorneywood only. But even this ended on 1 August 1951 thus bringing the story of the Nottingham Suburban Railway to an end. The last-ever passenger train to run over the line had been a chartered enthusiasts’ special between Daybrook and Thorneywood on 16 June 1951. Apart from a short section at Daybrook, the tracks were lifted between June and October 1954. When the connection at Daybrook Junction was removed on 24 February 1957, the end of the line had truly come.

Today little evidence remains of the Nottingham Suburban Railway. Being situated in the city’s suburbs, both residential and industrial developments have obliterated most traces of it. The line's course from Thorneywood station to Sneinton Tunnel has been made into a footpath. The latter’s portals have been partially obscured by infilling but access into the bore is still possible for members of the local gun club. Descending to Sneinton Dale, nothing remains of the three-arch viaduct which once took the line over it and the site is now occupied by a doctor’s surgery, medical centre and police station. The footpath resumes at a point just south of Sneinton and follows onwards to Colwick Road where the bridge has been removed.  The girders of the bridge over the Midland Railway have gone; however the segmental arch and abutments at Trent Lane still exist.

Few people are now aware that the Nottingham Suburban Railway existed. The line which was built to serve early commuters has almost disappeared but one cannot help wonder whether it might have found a fruitful role today, when we are all being urged to ditch the car in favour of public transport. Could it have formed the basis of a regenerated public transport infrastructure in the city? We will never know.

Ticket from Michael Stewart. Bradshaw from Nick Catford. Route map drawn by Alan Young.

Further reading:
Story of the Nottingham Suburban Railway: Pt. 1: Conception, Construction, Commencement David G Birch - Book Law Publications 2010
The Story of the Nottingham Suburban Railway: v. 2: The Operational Years David G Birch - Book Law Publications 2012

To see other stations on the Nottingham Suburban Railway click
on the station name:
Nottingham Victoria, Nottingham London Road Low Level, Nottingham London Road High Level, Thorneywood, Sherwood & Daybrook


Take the Grand Tour - A photographic survey of all the tunnel portals and bridges along the Nottingham Suburban Railway in 1904.



St. Ann's Well station looking north along the down platform c1904. The main station building is on the left with a waiting room on the down platform. From 1904 the signal box, seen at the north end of the up platform, was operated by the stationmaster as required. The goods yard was on the up side with a loop siding running behind the platform. The goods shed can just be made out behind
the up platform canopy.
Photo from Brubaker Imaging



1901 1: 10,560 (6") map showing St. Ann's Well station and the surrounding area. Sherwood Tunnel is seen to the north, with Thorneywood tunnel to the south. Click here for a larger version.


1900 1:2,500 OS map shows the layout of the station and goods yard. There is an approach road running north from The Wells Road to the station forecourt. There are facing buildings on the two platforms with a footbridge spanning the line to the south. The goods yard comprises three parallel loop sidings, two of them behind the up platform passing the goods shed; the third loops round the west side of the shed. There is also a short siding on the down side running behind the north end of the platform. Access to the goods yard is from The Wells Road. A weighbridge and office is seen just inside the entrance to the yard opposite the stationmaster's house. The signal box is seen at the north end of the up platform. There is a substantial skew-arch bridge across The Wells Road to the south of the station. Click here to see a larger version.


The massive skew bridge taking the line over The Wells Road in 1904. The entrance to St. Ann's Well station is a short distance along Kildare Road, which is seen on the left.
Photo from Brubaker Imaging


The timber up platform at St Anns well after closure. Surprisingly the platform lingered for some years. The goods shed is seen to the rear.


St. Ann's Well station looking north along the down platform in May 1952, ten months after complete closure. The down platform building has been demolished. The up platform building is still standing although devoid of its canopy but the timber platform and signal box have been demolished. The brick goods shed can be made out behind the waiting room but new housing has already started encroaching on the goods yard. Bentley's bridge is seen in the distance.
Copyright photo from Stations UK


Looking north towards the St. Ann's Well station site during redevelopment c1970.
Photo from John Mann collection


Redevelopment of St. Ann's Well station site is underway c1970.
Photo from John Mann collection


Looking into St. Ann's Well station site from the end of the approach road c1970.
Photo from John Mann collection


By c1970 the only remaining evidence of St. Ann's Well station was the stationmaster's house in The Wells Road. The entrance to the goods yard was in front of the house; the original gates were still in place at this time.
Photo from John Mann collection


Looking north at the site of St. Ann's well station site in July 1981.
Photo by John Mann


Looking north at St Anns well station site in April 2011 from a similar viewpoint to the picture above. The flats, built in the 1970s, have been demolished and the site awaits new development.
Photo by Nick Catford

Looking north at the site of St. Ann's Well station in July 2014.
Photo by Nick Catford

St. Ann's Well station house and the entrance to the goods yard in July 2014. The photo is taken from the same viewpoint as the c1970 picture above. The entrance to the goods yard is now Dooland Drive.
Photo by Nick Catford




Last updated: Friday, 26-May-2017 11:05:51 CEST
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