A Brief History of Wolsingham Station

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Wolsingham station opened in 1847. The station building which is now a private residence is in a similar style to Frosterley, has steeply pitched roofs of stone slabs, held in place by sheep's bones. It nestles between the River Wear and a high embankment, held back by a substantial retaining wall built in the 1890s. A wooden footbridge once linked the two platforms. Upstairs in the station house, the Directors of the NER often used to meet in the long room known as the 'board room'.

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Wolsingham is an attractive and expanding village, though it has always had a commercial base involving both agriculture and industry. Being just east of the limestone outcrop, its industries did not include quarrying, but the proximity of iron workings at Tow Law supported the building of a steel works that developed expertise in marine castings and fabrications. Their products included huge gunbarrels which were manufactured in a large stone building adjacent to the railway. This building, generally referred to as 'the gunbarrel shed', is now a listed building. It is unsuitable for modern foundry techniques and is therefore disused, but its position next to the railway makes it an ideal storage depot for our project.