Turnpike Stations

[leytongabriel]

A local historian was talking about Lea Bridge Station and said that it had been opened in a relatively unpromising situation because there was a legal requirement for a railway to build stations on roads where there was a turnpike. Does anybody know any more about this and what other turnpike stations are still in existence?

 

[PeterC]

I had never heard of that and the Great Central never had a station where the line crossed the Risborough - Thame turnpike (A4129)

 

[John Webb]

I'm not certain that there was any legal compulsion to build stations near turnpikes. Simmons and Biddle's "Oxford Companion to British Railway History" mentions that turnpike trusts were considerably disturbed by the coming of the railways. The Trusts usually objected to a line being built in their vicinity to the extent that by 1834 a standard printed form was provided by which a Trust could lodge their objection to Parliament regarding any proposed railway!

Bearing in mind the considerable reluctance of successive UK governments to control the spread of railways, I think it far more likely that the compulsion to build a station near a turnpike came from the commercial desire of the railway company to gather in passengers from the much slower and more uncomfortable stage coaches. It may be possible that Acts for particular railways included a reference to a local turnpike trust's road for perhaps local distribution or collection of goods?

 

[John Webb]

I had never heard of that and the Great Central never had a station where the line crossed the Risborough - Thame turnpike (A4129)

The last turnpike charging tolls was in Anglesey and that was abolished in 1895, so just a little before the GCR's extension into London would have crossed the Risbo'-Thame turnpike?

 

[randyrippley]

Seems unlikely
There are any number of turnpikes where nothing was built

 

[leytongabriel]

Thanks for these replies. I shall go back to her and ask her for a bit more on the subject.

 

[didcotdean]

Didcot was built close to a turnpike and the GWR developed an access road to/from it, the modern Station Road. Presumably there must have been some kind of agreement to permit that connection.

 

[MoleStation]

Durham Turnpike was a station north of Chester-le-Street in the early(ish) days of the Stanhope and Tyne railway on the old A1