Sheffield Lost Stations - Sheffield Victoria on the old Great Central Railway Woodhead Line

In part 2 of our Lost Railway stations of Sheffield series, we look at the vast site of the former Great Central Railway Sheffield Victoria station.

Sheffield Victoria was a former mainline station opened in 1851 by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. Later it became the Great Central Railway. The station closed in 1970 when the passenger services over Woodhead ceased.

The Woodhead line was the UKs first electrified railway and linked Sheffield with Manchester, with the famous Woodhead tunnel under the pennines. The line was cut to Sheffield in 1970.

Engineered by Joseph Locke, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway linking Manchester and Sheffield opened in 1845. Originally, this line terminated at the Bridgehouses station, which was about 0.7 miles (1 km) to the west of the future Victoria station. In 1847, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway merged with two other railway companies to form the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. The station at Bridgehouses had been outgrown, so an extension and new station were planned. John Fowler, who later gained fame for co-designing the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland, was employed to engineer the extension and station. Fowler's design included a viaduct over the Wicker that was 40 feet (12 m) high, 750 yards (690 m) long and two island platforms 1,000 ft (300 m) long. The extension was completed in 1847–1848 and the new Victoria station opened on 15 September 1851.

We can walk around the perimeter of the station and vast number of arches that supported the station and approaches. Although the main site is out of bounds and mostly eaten up by the Royal Victoria Hotel, we can still see former station features left behind like the staircase down to the Wicker. We finish the video by climbing the station approach where the main station building was acessed. There is still plenty of original station walls, the war memorial tiling from the staircase to platform 1.

Part 1 - Sheffield Park Station -    • Sheffield's Lost Stations - Park Good...  
Sheffield Five Weirs Walk -    • Sheffield Five Weirs Walk - River Don...  
Fiery Jack Tunnel -    • Sheffield Tunnel - Fiery Jack - Spita...