Buckingham railway station
Encyclopedia
Buckingham was a railway station which served Buckingham
, the former county town
of Buckinghamshire
, England
, between 1850 and 1966.
's main line to London
plotted a course which ran through Buckingham where a large locomotive and carriage works would have been built. The route was however altered in the face of opposition from the Duke of Buckingham who feared for the future of the town, and the line took a new course through Wolverton
, opening in 1838. It was to be a further twelve years before Buckingham was connected to the railway, this time on the initiative of the second Duke of Buckingham
together with local landowner Sir Harry Verney
who formed the Buckinghamshire Railway
to construct a line between Banbury
and Bletchley
.
After three years of construction, the single track line opened to passengers on 1 May 1850. The line was initially worked by the London and North Western Railway
(LNWR) which laid on a service of four trains each way daily. At Buckingham, a temporary rudimentary wooden station fronting on to Lenborough Road was used which initially suffered from poor access, being situated almost in the middle of a field along a footpath. This was improved when, in 1853, the station was reached by Chandos Road. The Buckingham Corporation petitioned the railway company to construct a better station which it eventually did in 1861. Designed by J.W. Livock, the new station was constructed in a doric style
with cornice moulding
and pediment
. A new road named "Station Road" was laid from Chandos Road to connect with Gawcott Road to allow passengers to reach the new booking office.
via Euston
. Initial regular services consisted of five daily trains each way on weekdays and one afternoon service on Sundays. Passengers could travel to London via Verney Junction
and Bletchley in around 2.5 hours, the service then continuing on to Liverpool
and Birmingham
via Rugby
. The completion of the new line south from Verney Junction to Aylesbury
in 1868 opened up the possibility of further destinations.
In 1889 the Duke of Buckingham died leaving no male issue meaning that the Dukedom of Buckingham and Chandos became extinct. The family seat at Stowe House
was subsequently let to the Comte de Paris
, the royalist pretender to the French throne. His residence at Stowe House led the railway company to install bilingual signage at the station as an aid to his staff. In 1898, W H Smith
installed a book stall on the platform, this was subsequently replaced by a Wyman's stall when a change in contract resulted in Smith's moving their business to the town centre. Milk trade was becoming an important source of railway income at the turn of the twentieth century, so much so that a milk processing factory was constructed opposite the station to handle the traffic. The factory's owners changed names several times, being variously known as the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co., the Condensed and Peptonised Milk Co., Thew, Hook and Gilbey and then later as United Dairies
.
In 1915, the LNWR made a number of economies to the line, one of which included the closure of the small signal box
in the goods yard, 750 yards to the north of the station. The double-track section between the station and signal box - the only doubled section on the line - was severed at the station and a buffer stop
installed on the down line. The up and down lines were then reconnected by slewing a section of track across.
attempted to reduce losses by introducing lightweight single unit diesel cars (9 up and down daily) in 1956 between Banbury and Buckingham as part of the 1955 Modernisation Plan. Although this experiment was rewarded by an increase in traffic of over 400%, British Rail nevertheless claimed that the line was uneconomic. The section between Banbury and Buckingham closed on 2 January 1961, leaving Buckingham as the terminus for the branch passenger traffic.
Proposals to close the remainder of the line surfaced in September 1963 and a public hearing was held the following October. Passenger services were subsequently withdrawn as from 7 September 1964, leaving the line to Verney Junction open for freight. Woolworths
opened a store in Buckingham in February 1964 and operated a policy of moving their goods by rail. The station's goods yard was soon full of vans carrying the company's merchandise. British Rail nonetheless announced the closure of the branch to Verney Junction as from 11 March 1966, with the line remaining open until 4 April for the purposes of a visit from the Queen
. The station did eventually close in December 1966.
In its last full year of service, the line between Bletchley and Buckingham carried 6,600 passengers, with receipts of £4,000. This amount included 1,000 passengers travelling on Stowe School
specials, who accounted for £1,250; the remaining 5,600 passengers brought in an income of £2,750, working out at two passengers per train. A Midland Red
bus service provided a replacement service between local villages.
Buckingham
Buckingham is a town situated in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. The town has a population of 11,572 ,...
, the former county town
County town
A county town is a county's administrative centre in the United Kingdom or Ireland. County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its...
of Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, between 1850 and 1966.
Opening
The first survey of the London and Birmingham RailwayLondon and Birmingham Railway
The London and Birmingham Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway ....
's main line to London
West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the...
plotted a course which ran through Buckingham where a large locomotive and carriage works would have been built. The route was however altered in the face of opposition from the Duke of Buckingham who feared for the future of the town, and the line took a new course through Wolverton
Wolverton railway station
Wolverton railway station serves northern Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, especially Stony Stratford, Wolverton and New Bradwell.The station is served by London Midland local services from Northampton to London on the West Coast Main Line. It is one of the five stations serving Milton Keynes...
, opening in 1838. It was to be a further twelve years before Buckingham was connected to the railway, this time on the initiative of the second Duke of Buckingham
Richard Temple-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos GCSI, PC , styled Earl Temple until 1839 and Marquess of Chandos from 1839 to 1861, was a British soldier, politician and administrator of the 19th century...
together with local landowner Sir Harry Verney
Sir Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet
Sir Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet PC, DL, JP was an English soldier and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1832 and 1885.-Background and education:...
who formed the Buckinghamshire Railway
Buckinghamshire Railway
The Buckinghamshire Railway was a railway company in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, England that constructed railway lines connecting Bletchley, Banbury and Oxford...
to construct a line between Banbury
Banbury Merton Street railway station
Banbury Merton Street was the first railway station to serve the Oxfordshire market town of Banbury in England. It opened in 1850 as the northern terminus of the Buckinghamshire Railway providing connections to Bletchley and Oxford and closing for passengers in 1961 and goods in 1966.- Context...
and Bletchley
Bletchley railway station
Bletchley is a railway station that serves the southern districts of Milton Keynes , and the north-eastern parts of the Buckinghamshire district of Aylesbury Vale....
.
After three years of construction, the single track line opened to passengers on 1 May 1850. The line was initially worked by the London and North Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
(LNWR) which laid on a service of four trains each way daily. At Buckingham, a temporary rudimentary wooden station fronting on to Lenborough Road was used which initially suffered from poor access, being situated almost in the middle of a field along a footpath. This was improved when, in 1853, the station was reached by Chandos Road. The Buckingham Corporation petitioned the railway company to construct a better station which it eventually did in 1861. Designed by J.W. Livock, the new station was constructed in a doric style
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
with cornice moulding
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
and pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
. A new road named "Station Road" was laid from Chandos Road to connect with Gawcott Road to allow passengers to reach the new booking office.
Early years
A number of railway excursions were organised in the early years, taking passengers to destinations such as Crystal PalaceThe Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
via Euston
Euston railway station
Euston railway station, also known as London Euston, is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden. It is the sixth busiest rail terminal in London . It is one of 18 railway stations managed by Network Rail, and is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line...
. Initial regular services consisted of five daily trains each way on weekdays and one afternoon service on Sundays. Passengers could travel to London via Verney Junction
Verney Junction railway station
Verney Junction was a railway station at a junction serving four directions between 1868 and 1968 and from where excursions as far as Ramsgate could be booked...
and Bletchley in around 2.5 hours, the service then continuing on to Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
via Rugby
Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, located on the River Avon. The town has a population of 61,988 making it the second largest town in the county...
. The completion of the new line south from Verney Junction to Aylesbury
Aylesbury railway station
Aylesbury railway station is a railway station in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England and is a major stop on the London to Aylesbury Line from Marylebone station via Amersham. It is 37.75 miles from Aylesbury Station to Marylebone Station...
in 1868 opened up the possibility of further destinations.
In 1889 the Duke of Buckingham died leaving no male issue meaning that the Dukedom of Buckingham and Chandos became extinct. The family seat at Stowe House
Stowe House
Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house located in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school. The gardens , a significant example of the English Landscape Garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust...
was subsequently let to the Comte de Paris
Philippe, Comte de Paris
Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris was the grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French. He was a claimant to the French throne from 1848 until his death.-Early life:...
, the royalist pretender to the French throne. His residence at Stowe House led the railway company to install bilingual signage at the station as an aid to his staff. In 1898, W H Smith
W H Smith
WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...
installed a book stall on the platform, this was subsequently replaced by a Wyman's stall when a change in contract resulted in Smith's moving their business to the town centre. Milk trade was becoming an important source of railway income at the turn of the twentieth century, so much so that a milk processing factory was constructed opposite the station to handle the traffic. The factory's owners changed names several times, being variously known as the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co., the Condensed and Peptonised Milk Co., Thew, Hook and Gilbey and then later as United Dairies
United Dairies
This article is about the former dairy products manufacturing and distribution company. For the United Dairies record label, see Steven Stapleton...
.
In 1915, the LNWR made a number of economies to the line, one of which included the closure of the small signal box
Signal box
On a rail transport system, signalling control is the process by which control is exercised over train movements by way of railway signals and block systems to ensure that trains operate safely, over the correct route and to the proper timetable...
in the goods yard, 750 yards to the north of the station. The double-track section between the station and signal box - the only doubled section on the line - was severed at the station and a buffer stop
Buffer stop
A buffer stop or bumper is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track.The design of the buffer stop is dependent in part upon the kind of couplings that the railway uses, since the coupling gear is the first part of the vehicle that the buffer stop...
installed on the down line. The up and down lines were then reconnected by slewing a section of track across.
Decline and closure
Passenger traffic over the line was never particularly heavy, although it was a useful goods route. In the face of increased competition from buses and the private motor car in the 1920s and 1930s, passenger levels declined. By the late 1940s, Sunday passenger services were withdrawn and there were now only four services each way on weekdays. The line was also hit hard by the ASLEF strike of 1955 which saw much of the milk traffic lost to road. A form of reprieve came in 1956 when British RailEastern Region of British Railways
The Eastern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s and was wound up at the end of 1992...
attempted to reduce losses by introducing lightweight single unit diesel cars (9 up and down daily) in 1956 between Banbury and Buckingham as part of the 1955 Modernisation Plan. Although this experiment was rewarded by an increase in traffic of over 400%, British Rail nevertheless claimed that the line was uneconomic. The section between Banbury and Buckingham closed on 2 January 1961, leaving Buckingham as the terminus for the branch passenger traffic.
Proposals to close the remainder of the line surfaced in September 1963 and a public hearing was held the following October. Passenger services were subsequently withdrawn as from 7 September 1964, leaving the line to Verney Junction open for freight. Woolworths
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
opened a store in Buckingham in February 1964 and operated a policy of moving their goods by rail. The station's goods yard was soon full of vans carrying the company's merchandise. British Rail nonetheless announced the closure of the branch to Verney Junction as from 11 March 1966, with the line remaining open until 4 April for the purposes of a visit from the Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
. The station did eventually close in December 1966.
In its last full year of service, the line between Bletchley and Buckingham carried 6,600 passengers, with receipts of £4,000. This amount included 1,000 passengers travelling on Stowe School
Stowe School
Stowe School is an independent school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. It was founded on 11 May 1923 by J. F. Roxburgh, initially with 99 male pupils. It is a member of the Rugby Group and Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school is also a member of the G20 Schools Group...
specials, who accounted for £1,250; the remaining 5,600 passengers brought in an income of £2,750, working out at two passengers per train. A Midland Red
Midland Red
Midland Red was a bus company which operated in the English Midlands from 1905 to 1981. It was the trading name used by the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company , which was renamed Midland Red Omnibus Company in 1974...
bus service provided a replacement service between local villages.