BROWSE JOURNEYS BY MAP VIEW

Saturday 4 December 2021

Rails Around Bridlington


A short walk around the Bridlington Station site.


The original railway station at Bridlington was situated to the north of the current station and like several stations in East Yorkshire was built to a design by G.T.Andrews with an overall roof over its two through platforms. A bay platform was also provided for services from the Malton and Driffield Railway. Similar stations survive at Beverley and Filey on the same route between Hull and Scarborough. More about the Hull to Scarborough line can be read on the Yorkshire Coast Community Rail Partnership website.

Below - The original roofed station in the centre of this 1958 photo. (Photo by Tony Ross from the above website.)



In 1912 the station was extended to the south to handle increasing summer tourist traffic with the addition of two through platforms, a bay platform, two excursion platforms and new station buildings featuring a grand concourse. With the closure of the original platforms in 1983 the station today is that 1912 extension. Houses have been built on the site of the original station with just a tiny fragment of the original station in the buildings of platform 4 surviving.

Below - The buildings on platform 4, these are remnants of the original station, the yellow brick wall was once the rear wall of the original station, the line through the later platform 4 having curved around the original station buildings.



Below - A view from the road bridge over the station showing the surviving platforms 4 - 6. The houses built on the original station site can be seen on the left. In platform 5 the autumn Rail Head Treatment Train waits to depart towards Hull. On the right hand side the excursion platforms 7 and 8 had recently been removed.


Below - The semaphore signal clears for the RHTT. Work had begun on the resignalling work that would replace the last Semaphores in East Yorkshire just days later. The signal box seen in the background survived the work as it is a listed building. Out of shot on the left of the picture a B&Q superstore occupies the site of the engine shed.

Below - The 1912 station concourse.


Below - The Booking Office with the art nouveau decorations. 


Below - The 1912 main entrance that replaced the original entrance on the north side of the station (the opposite side of the complex to the centre of the town)


Below- To the east of the station buildings the original goods shed survives. This is a G.T.Andrews structure similar to several seen in the area and is part of the original station complex.


Below - At the edge of the station building it can be seen that the wall is angled for a line that passed the edge of the building in to the goods yard where the Tesco supermarket now stands.



The line curving past the station building in to the goods yard originally continued as a branch line to the harbour. The Bridlington Harbour Branch was short lived, only operating from 1851 to 1866 but wasn't lifted until 1917, hence its appearance in the above map as an "old tramway". It ran parallel Windsor Cresent at the back of the houses and those houses now have larger rear gardens that have extended over the former trackbed. None of the maps show what happened at the harbour end due to the short lifespan of the line. The map shows it truncated at South Cliff Gardens, presumably it will have continued to the jetty.

Below - The only remnant of the harbour branch is this bridge between the Tesco petrol station and Hilderthorpe Road.



Below - The gap in the buildings where the harbour branch used to run.


Below - Platform 6 seen in the 1990s, in the background is the former excursion platforms and the former manure works still stood at the time.


Below - Platform 6 in the 1990s with a class 101 diesel unit stabled in the former Platform 7 excursion platform.


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