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Trivia — Stations That Have Created a New Settlement

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Dr_Paul

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Following on from the two threads on convenient and inconvenient stations, and touched upon in some of the posts therein, how about a thread discussing where the building of a railway station has actually led to the creation of a new settlement around it? Let's start with a few around London.

Harrow station on the LNWR, now Harrow and Wealdstone. When it was opened it was in open countryside on the lane halfway between Harrow and Harrow Weald; by 1900 there was a new settlement around the station called Wealdstone.

Surbiton station on the LSWR main line. When it was opened as the station for Kingston it was in a cutting in largely open countryside, with the original settlement of Surbiton being half a mile to the north; by 1900 it was surrounded by urban development (which is what people today think of as Surbiton).

Other similar cases are Wimbledon, New Malden, Raynes Park, Worcester Park and Clapham Junction.

Let's have some more from other parts of Britain.
 
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Ash Bridge

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Would Crewe be a contender, surely just a small village prior to the arrival of the railway I think?
 

yorksrob

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Haywards Heath only really took off as a settlement after the LB&SCR weren't allowed to route their line via Cuckfield.

Verney Junction.
 

simonw

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Woking. Settlement grew up around the station in what was open countryside.
 

MarlowDonkey

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Let's have some more from other parts of Britain.

When the Wycombe railway crossed the Thames, it built a station , later a junction for the railway to Marlow called Marlow Road. This was about equidistant from three hamlets by the names of Cores End, Well End and Bone End. Later Bone End renamed Bourne End became the station name and also that of the wider district as a village centre developed around the railway.
 

LUYMun

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ALL North-west London Underground stations are such perfect examples. Urbanised not even a decade later, Kingsbury, Rayner's Lane, Pinner and Edgware had new areas sprung with that name.

Highgate was supposed to be named after a bridge over a cutting, which the whole town was later called Highgate.

Also, Queensbury had its name chosen randomly to suit where it is located (between Kingsbury and Wembley Park), soon enough the town of Queensbury was born.
 
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30907

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Would have thought a lot of places in the London suburbs qualify?
Petts Wood comes to mind immediately, but there must be others.
 

Revilo

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Micheldever Station. Originally opened as Andover Road (before it got a station of its own), it's a long way from the village, and a new community (called Micheldever Station) grew up around the station.
 

Bevan Price

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Blackpool, Southport - both tiny settlements before the arrival of railways and affordable seaside holidays.
(Plus, I imagine, several other seaside towns.)
Horwich - after the L&YR opened its loco works.
 

alangla

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A recent one - Armadale station was built a distance from the town it serves. After it opened, a new Asda and several big housing estates appeared around the station area, away from the town.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Llandudno Junction. Originally the junction for Llandudno (as the name suggests) in open countryside, a settlement grew around the station and took its name from it.
 

Peter Mugridge

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Stoneleigh near Epsom - here it is in 1932. Today it's just a mass of housing.

Not 100% sure if it counts, though, as it was built prior to the development as part of the development rather than as somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The same is probably true of just about every other suburban station in and around London.

upload_2018-12-25_21-48-25.png

( This picture is widely available on the internet and I also have a framed print of it at home which I bought in pre-internet days )
 
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Train jaune

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Not a big new settlement but an area of a few square miles of rural hinterland. Bay Horse, between Lancaster and Preston. Station named after the adjacent Inn and before too long all the farms and houses within half a mile are said to be in Bay Horse.
 
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Two West Country examples are Halwill Junction in Devon and Grampound Road in Cornwall, where the name lives on despite the stations being closed in 1966 and 1964 respectively. Both these settlements are now larger than their namesake villages, which are quite some distance away. Grampound Road has had a lot of new housing in recent years, so being on the Cornish Main Line has been suggested as a possible candidate for reopening.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Not a big new settlement but an area of a few square miles of rural hinterland. Bay Horse, between Lancaster and Preston. Station named after the adjacent Inn and before too long all the farms and houses within half a mile are said to be in Bay Horse.
On that basis, Nelson is one. Station named for an inn, later settlement takes that name.
 

Springs Branch

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In north-west England, many of the railway lines were built to serve industry and the movement of goods & minerals, rather than to serve speculative suburban development. But there are some "Metroland"-style examples around Liverpool and Manchester, where the earliest 1840s editions of OS maps show the railway lines and stations in place, but little or no development around stations which became busy suburban hubs in the 20th Century.

Blundellsands & Crosby, Formby and Ainsdale on the Merseyrail Northern line are shown as stations in the middle of fields or sand dunes when the railway was first built.
Meols and West Kirby stations on the Wirral line also originally had sparse or no settlements around them.

Around Manchester, residential developments of the semi-detached suburbia ilk filled up the land around Stretford and Sale to the south, and Besses o' th' Barn, Prestwich and Whitefield to the north. 1840s maps show there were only minor settlements alongside a main road before.
(admittedly, these last examples are all now on Metrolink routes, but their development was catalysed by the original, conventional heavy rail lines and stations)
 

markindurham

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Ferryhill Station
(Ironic, really, since the station has been closed now for many years, but the railway is still there)
 

Western Lord

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Halwill Junction, now much bigger than Halwill and indeed bigger than it was when the railway was open (some of the new development is on railway land). Being on the main A 3079 road helps.
 

Cherry_Picker

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More modern examples are probably to do with integrated design ideas, Aylesbury Vale Parkway was built a decade ago and now there are about 10,000 people living nearby in new houses, but I don't think either would have happened without the other.

London has been cited many times already but I'd say pretty much everything outside of zone 2 is probably there because of the railways.
 

InTheEastMids

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Linslade grew around Leighton Buzzard station, pretty sure there was nothing there before the railway arrived.

What's now Old Linslade is a hamlet North of Linslade Tunnel
 

Bald Rick

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ALL North-west London Underground stations are such perfect examples. Urbanised not even a decade later, Kingsbury, Rayner's Lane, Pinner and Edgware had new areas sprung with that name.

Highgate was supposed to be named after a bridge over a cutting, which the whole area was called Highgate.

Also, Queensbury had its name chosen randomly to suit where it is located (between Kingsbury and Wembley Park), soon enough the town of Queensbury was born.

Indeed, and arguably tracts of South London also.

There’s a wonderful picture of Golders Green station just after construction, in the middle of a farmer’s field.
 
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