Anomalous station names

[BeijingDave]

Sorry if a similar thread has already been done, but it was prompted by somebody mentioning Sankey and Penketh (sic) station in another thread.

The actual name of the station: Sankey for Penketh.

However, as someone with knowledge of the area (my great uncle lived in Sankey his whole life), there is no apparent reason why it should be called that.

A look at Google maps shows Great Sankey as the area directly below and to the east of the station, with Penketh contiguous and slightly to the west. In other words, anywhere else it would have been called Sankey & Penketh!

I can't get to the bottom of it, but maybe a CLC peculiarity that just stuck.

 

[greatkingrat]

Have a look at some historic maps (eg https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14.7&lat=53.38596&lon=-2.65264&layers=6&b=1 )

The area by the station was Great Sankey and Penketh was a separate settlement to the South West. Obviously now they have both been swallowed by the greater Warrington urban area, but the name made sense when the station was first built.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Just to clarify, is the town / locality known as 'Sankey' or 'Great Sankey'?

 

[BeijingDave]

Officially Great Sankey (to distinguish from Sankey Bridges to the south), but everyone locally just calls it Sankey.

 

[MCR247]

Not the same as the initial example, but somewhat interesting.

In the Nottingham area, Carlton station has platforms either side of a level crossing that essentially marks the end of Netherfield’s ‘high street.’ Meanwhile, Netherfield station is about a mile away and arguably could be called Colwick. It actually opened as Colwick in 1878. 5 years later it then was renamed Netherfield & Colwick, before being changed again to Netherfield 18 years later. This lasted for 24 years before it reverted the joint naming. 49 years later in ‘74 it again became Netherfield. It probably has changed name more times than trains currently stop there per day!

 

[BeijingDave]

Have a look at some historic maps (eg https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14.7&lat=53.38596&lon=-2.65264&layers=6&b=1 )

The area by the station was Great Sankey and Penketh was a separate settlement to the South West. Obviously now they have both been swallowed by the greater Warrington urban area, but the name made sense when the station was first built.

It makes sense. Thanks.

 

[Western Lord]

There are many examples of stations being named for the nearest "important" settlement rather than the one they are located in. A classic example is Elstree on the Midland main Line, situated in what was an unimportant place called Borehamwood and named after the nearest village which was (and is) a mile away. As was to be expected, the settlement around the railway grew in size and became much bigger than the place the station was named for, helped in the case of Borehamwood by it becoming a centre for the film industry with three major studios (National Studios, later ATV and now BBC Elstree, ABPC Elstree, still operating on a reduced site and the lamented MGM-British Studios which closed in 1970). It is probably the presence of the studios which still insist on calling themselves Elstree studios (although MGM-British was always Borehamwood) that has prevented the station from being renamed simply as Borehamwood, which is sort of ironic as they were named Elstree studios because that was what the station was called.

 

[vic-rijrode]

On the former LNWR WCML, the station that is now Hemel Hempstead was, for the first almost 80 years of its life, called Boxmoor which was the small village close to the station whilst Hemel was a small market town clustered around what is now the "Old Town" a couple of miles away. As Hemel grew the name was changed firstly to Boxmoor and Hemel Hempstead, then Hemel Hempstead and Boxmoor. Finally after Hemel was designated a New Town (after WW2) and vastly increased in size and population, the name was changed in 1963 to plain Hemel Hempstead.

Although the Midland Railway had a "competing" station close to the Old Town and even closer to the New Town centre, it was near the end of a single track branch line (known as the Nicky or Nickey Line) and was never truly competitive. The anomaly is that throughout its life, this little station was called Hemel Hempsted. It was closed to passengers in 1947. Incidentally the branch line was one of the few that terminated at a Halt (Heath Park) and is notable in locomotive preservation terms as being the last line on which the only surviving Clayton 17 loco ran in industrial use.

 

[Purple Train]

Colchester Town.

Colchester has recently been granted city status, so surely it should be changed to something along the lines of Colchester City or Colchester Central, or, indeed, revert to its pre-1991 (and still locally used) name of St Botolph's, named after the adjacent church.

 

[PGAT]

Farningham Road. The villages of Horton Kirby, Sutton-at-Hone and Darenth are all closer to the station than Farningham. The road leading to Farningham isn’t even called Farningham Road, it’s called Dartford Road.

 

[dvboy]

One of the proposed names for the new Pineapple Road station was Strichley, but what most people would consider to be the centre of Stirchley is closer to Bournville station.

 

[12C]

Always thought Oxenholme was a peculiar one for a relatively important station on the WCML. Obscurely named after a farm on the outskirts of Kendal, which later grew to be a small village. It was originally named Kendal Junction, which to me makes more sense as the station is just on the outskirts of Kendal and is the main station of the town.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Always thought Oxenholme was a peculiar one for a relatively important station on the WCML. Obscurely named after a farm on the outskirts of Kendal, which later grew to be a small village. It was originally named Kendal Junction, which to me makes more sense as the station is just on the outskirts of Kendal and is the main station of the town.

The London Underground has a few strange ones. For example, Euston Square station is on Euston Road, but not at Euston Square; Euston station, however, is on Euston Square. Bayswater station is on Queensway; Queensway station is on Bayswater Road (admittedly it is on the corner of Queensway).

 

[William3000]

Three Bridges seems an odd one to me. I presume it’s an older village that got subsumed by the new town of Crawley, becoming a suburb of that town, but I can’t imagine it is a widely known place outside that part of Sussex.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Three Bridges seems an odd one to me. I presume it’s an older village that got subsumed by the new town of Crawley, becoming a suburb of that town, but I can’t imagine it is a widely known place outside that part of Sussex.

Yes - Crawley was one of the post-war New Towns, and its growth tied in with the growth of Gatwick. (I stayed there occasionally in the late '50s, at the home of a sister of a friend of mine - she worked for an airline at the airport - and it all seemed incredibly, in fact strangely, new.) Crawley's growth naturally took in surrounding places - but the Three Bridges railway station kept the name it had had for a hundred years. (And a station which is nearer the centre of Crawley, and which was expanded because of the new town, is of course the one called Crawley. So not really any anomaly here.)

If the "three" in Three Bridges seems anomalous, that's because the line from London once divided three ways here - presumably, therefore, with three adjacent bridges at that point - but the branch to the east (to East Grinstead) was one of the Beeching closures. (Ironically, Beeching lived in East Grinstead.)

 

[The exile]

The logic (if you can apply logic to nomenclature) is that station “A for B” is in A but also serves the (more) important B. It is named after A either because it already was before B became significant or because Lord A (or similar) made it part of the land purchase contract. “A and B” is in neither but serves both.

 

[DelW]

Three Bridges seems an odd one to me. I presume it’s an older village that got subsumed by the new town of Crawley, becoming a suburb of that town, but I can’t imagine it is a widely known place outside that part of Sussex.

If the "three" in Three Bridges seems anomalous, that's because the line from London once divided three ways here - presumably, therefore, with three adjacent bridges at that point - but the branch to the east (to East Grinstead) was one of the Beeching closures. (Ironically, Beeching lived in East Grinstead.)

The maps available on the NLS website suggest that it was a pre-existing village, and don't seem to support the theory that the "three" relates to the three railway routes south of the station.

This is about the clearest:

View map: Ordnance Survey, Sussex IV.9 (Worth) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952

by which time there was both a river bridge and a railway bridge, but the origin of the "three" in the name isn't evident.

 

[BarryD]

Wikipedia (usual caution applies) says that Three Bridges already existed as a hamlet when the railway arrived. It was named after three bridges over local streams.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Wikipedia (usual caution applies) says that Three Bridges already existed as a hamlet when the railway arrived. It was named after three bridges over local streams.

Aha - so the three (at one stage) railway bridges when heading south from the station were a lucky coincidence ... I've obviously been making a wrong assumption for many years!

 

[SouthSub]

Colchester Town.

Colchester has recently been granted city status, so surely it should be changed to something along the lines of Colchester City or Colchester Central, or, indeed, revert to its pre-1991 (and still locally used) name of St Botolph's, named after the adjacent church.

On a recent journey to Fife, I noticed that Dunfermline Town station has been renamed Dunfermline City for this reason.

 

[vic-rijrode]

On a recent journey to Fife, I noticed that Dunfermline Town station has been renamed Dunfermline City for this reason.

Dunfermline City, formerly Town used to be known as Dunfermline Lower to distinguish it from the Upper Station on the (now closed) line to Oakley and Alloa. I walked between the two in 1968 and it really was uphill from Lower to Upper, through a very pleasant park.

 

[pompeyfan]

Micheldever is miles away from Micheldever village, however now has its own village called Micheldever station village according to Google.

 

[rower40]

Shippea Hill.
In an area of the fens so flat that BR used to send its spirit levels there to be calibrated.

 

[vic-rijrode]

On a smaller note, Seaburn Station on the Tyne and Wear Metro (which used to be a station on the Durham Coast line) is actually in Fulwell around a mile from Seaburn itself which is on the coast.

 

[D6130]

Witley station on the Portsmouth Direct Line is actually situated on the edge of the village of Wormley....some distance away from Witley itself.

 

[snowball]

There seems to be a new thread like this one about every six months.

 

[D6130]

Weeton station on the Leeds-Harrogate line is actually situated in the village of Huby....some way from the village of Weeton.

Thirsk station on the East Coast main Line is actually situated in the village of Sowerby....a couple of miles from Thirsk town centre.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Neither of Wakefield's stations are on or accessed directly from the roads they take their names from.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cark. Nobody seems to know if it should be "and Cartmel", "in Cartmel" or just on its own. All versions have existed or do exist, be that on the PIS, on timetables, on the station signs or on the street signs just outside the village itself!

(On its own probably makes more sense, as someone wanting to get to Cartmel is better advised to go to Grange where there's at least a chance of a(n infrequent) bus or a taxi, whereas from Cark walking is going to be the only option)

 

[BeijingDave]

Wigan North Western is of course not in the north western part of town, which is confusing for those who don't know the history of the name.