Healey House Station, South Crosland

Healey House Station was a manned station on the Meltham Branch Line.

History

Possibly built to serve the workers at Crosland Mills (also known as Crosland Factory), the station was also reportedly used by the residents of Crosland Hall and Healey House[1] to embark by private train on their annual grouse shooting holidays in Scotland.

On 2 September 1869, the first train of the day delivered two calves to Meltham. Unfortunately they managed to escape at the station, with one running along the platform whilst the other bolted in the opposite direction back down the line. When the train set off to return to Huddersfield, it soon caught up with the second calf but the animal refused to move off the line. The train eventually crawled into Healey House Station, where the railway staff were able to force the calf down an embankment.[2]

A new approach road to the station was built in 1877, reportedly paid for by Robert Skilbeck of Healey House.[3]

A pair of sidings were situated a short distance before the station and, according to Neil Fraser, were used during the Second World War to store camouflaged chemical tankers "for use at the I.C.I. works at Huddersfield for explosive production".[4]

Passenger services ended in May 1949 and the the line closed for good in 1965. An Ordnance Survey map from the mid-1960s shows that the platform and station buildings had been removed.

Gallery

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Location

Notes and References

  1. The resident of Healey House at this time was Charles Brook (1792-1869) and his wife Anne.
  2. "Meltham" in Huddersfield Chronicle (04/Sep/1869).
  3. Although the new road and the required changes were described in detail in the "Public Notices" of the Huddersfield Chronicle (13/Oct/1877), it remains uncertain why the work was done and why Skilbeck was willing to pay for it.
  4. Branchlines of the L.&.Y.R. No. 5: The Meltham Branch (1987) by Neil Fraser.