Monument record MDR12153 - Staveley Central Station (site of), Lowgates, Staveley

Staveley Central Station formed part of the Great Central Railway line. It opened in 1892 as Staveley Town Station, not adopting the Staveley Central name until the 1950s. The station was arranged around four platforms, serving the Manchester to London mainline and the Chesterfield Loop. The main booking office was located at road level, carried over the mainline tracks, with covered stairs down to platform level. Extending to the west of the booking office was a covered footbridge providing access to platform 4. Each platform was further equipped with a single-storey waiting room. The station was surveyed in 1960 to assess the condition of the building. These plans show that the booking office was of typical design for the Great Central Railway's Derbyshire lines, employing the cottage ornèe style. Below it, at platform level, were a signal and telegraph store, transformer house and coal store. An electrician's store was incorporated into the brick pier of the road bridge. The waiting rooms to the north reflected the ornate style of the booking office. Passenger trains continued to use Staveley Central until 1963, although the booking office had already been made redundant and was later dismantled. Survey in 2006 found only limited standing remains, all in a poor condition, with the site being heavily overgrown. Surviving fragments of the station included a small section of standing wall with an additional building footprint to the north. Fragmentary remains of three of the platforms survived, with the footprint of the central waiting room visible on platform 2 and 3 in the form of the concrete footings upon which the timber superstructure had been constructed. Other remains include parts of the pedestrian footbridge across the railway, and a series of truncated walls from a single room and external store, with evidence for an arched entrance. (1)