The story behind the Essex home that used to be a busy railway …

Essex is a big county, and especially before travelling by car became the norm, travelling by train was the easiest way to get around. This means that our county is full of buildings that used to be train stations. This includes Felsted train station, which was located between Felsted and Little Dunmow.

It was 11 miles from Bishop’s Stortford, on the Bishop’s Stortford to Braintree branch line. The station opened on February 22, 1869, and closed to passengers on May 5, 1952, before closing completely ten years later on May 4, 1964. According to the website Disused Stations[1], by the 1860s, most of the rail network had been put in place, and now attention turned to filling in the gaps between mainline stations.

Central and West Essex was, at the time, a largely rural area, and had been ignored during the initial developments of the rail network as it wasn’t considered important enough. However, in 1859 Eastern Counties Railway received an unexpected proposal from a group of Hertfordshire businessmen who wanted to create easier transport for malt and barley from towns and villages in West Essex. The businessmen proposed an 18 mile long railway line that would link the towns of Bishop’s Stortford, Dunmow and Braintree together.

Despite locals being unenthusiastic about the railway line, the railway company (now Great Eastern Railway) pledged to fun the line themselves and work began in 1965. The line was finally opened for passenger use on February 22, 1869, with intermediate stations at Takeley, Felstead and Rayne. Further stations were later added at Easton Lodge in 1894, Hockrill Halt in 1910 and Stane Street and Banister Green Halts in 1922.

While the trainline was used during the Second World War, the public had begun to adopt the motor car as their preferred way of travelling, and the passenger service on the trainline ran almost empty. Despite public protests, the last train to run between the two towns was on March 1 1952. The station itself was originally known as Felstead – with the added ‘A’ – but the spelling was changed to Felsted in 1950 to match the spelling of the Essex village.

The buildings comprised of the station masters house, staff rooms, waiting room, lamp room and a ticket office.

References

1. ^ Disused Stations (www.disused-stations.org.uk)
2. ^ Family of Rorke’s Drift hero trying to buy back his lost medals (www.essexlive.news)