Finmere railway station

Infobox UK disused station
name = Finmere
gridref = SP629313


caption = Stationmaster's house and railway overbridge in 2006.
manager = Great Central Railway
owner = London and North Eastern Railway
London Midland Region of British Railways
locale = Finmere
borough = Cherwell
platforms = 2
years = 15 March 1899
events = Opened (Finmere for Buckingham)
years1 = c1922
events1 = Renamed (Finmere)
years2 = 4 March 1963
events2 = Closed to passengers [Butt, R.V.J. (1995). "The Directory of Railway Stations", Patrick Stephens Ltd, Sparkford, ISBN 1-85260-508-1, p. 96.]
years3 = 5 October 1964
events3 = Closed to goods

Finmere was a railway station on the former Great Central Main Line which ran from Manchester Piccadilly to London Marylebone. Opened in 1899 to serve the nearby village of Finmere, the station closed in 1963, only for the line to remain open through it until 1966.

History

Construction and opening

Finmere station was on the Great Central Railway, the last English main line to be built in 1899 and the first to be closed in 1966. The section of the line between Brackley and Quainton Road was to be constructed by Walter Scott & Co., civil engineers from Newcastle-upon-Tyne at a cost of £420,000. The construction of the section through Finmere necessitated considerable earthworks, the remains of which can still be seen today. To the north, a cutting of 180,000 cubic yards had to be excavated, while to the south the railway crossed an embankment which required the excavation of nearly 200,000 cubic yards. The earthworks were required as a consequence of the Great Central's policy to eliminate level crossings on the London Extension, regarding them as a source of danger, inconvenience and cost. This resulted in the construction of bridges for crossings both large and small, including a timber overbridge to the north of Finmere for the convenience of the local Grafton Hunt. [Cite book | author=Davies, R.; Grant, M.D. | authorlink= | coauthors= | title=Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds | year=1984 | publisher=David St John Thomas | location=Newton Abbot, Devon | isbn=0-946537-07-0 | pages=p. 194]

Opened in March 1899, Finmere typified the Great Central's brand of station which was reached via a flight of steps leading up from the centre of a road underbridge, each track having a separate bridge span. A house was provided for the stationmaster and land set aside for the future provision of railway cottages. At a distance of 54.5 miles from Marylebone and just over half-a-mile from Finmere village, the station boasted a small goods yard with a cattle pen, coal staithes and a goods store. The station was originally known as "Finmere for Buckingham", but as Buckingham was four miles away and served by the LNWR's Buckingham station, it was hardly convenient to alight at Finmere in order to reach the historic county town. Traps waited under the shelter of the road underbridge to ferry passengers to their destinations. Local entrepreneurs soon took advantage of the railway's presence to launch new ventures - a livestock market was opened on land adjacent to the station by Paxton & Holiday, while construction of the Shelswell Inn began in May 1900. A further bonus for the railway was the opening of Stowe School in 1923; situated a short distance across the nearby fields, the school's nearest station was Finmere and it provided a useful form of transportation for staff and pupils alike. [Cite book | author=Healy, John M.C. | title=Great Central Memories | date=1987 | publisher=Baton Transport | location=London | isbn=0-85936-193-4 | pages=p. 116]

Operations

The station became a popular alighting place for day-trippers from London and two or three special services ran on Sundays bringing as many as fifty or sixty excursionists to the area who often found they had to walk the four miles to Buckingham in the absence of local conveyances.ref>cite book | last = Boddington | first = Andy | title = The Millennium History of Finmere; Chapter 8: Roads and Railways | publisher = | date = 2001 | location = | pages = | url = http://www.bodders.org/finmere/history/books/millennium/CHPT08.PDF | isbn = ] A slip coach service to Buckingham was introduced in 1923 to take advantage of the wealthy and prominent commuters who were now living in the area; these included Admiral Roger Keyes and Captain Ferrass Loftus who both lived at Tingewick, the banker L. Fleischmann of Chetwode Manor and Charles William Trotter, a director of the LNER who lived at Barton Hartshorn Manor. [Healy, J.M.C., op. cit. p. 116.] A slip coach on the 18.20 from Marylebone reached Finmere at 19.28 [Davies, R. and Grant, M.D., op. cit. p. 194.] , the guard releasing the last carriage as the service approached the station and this carriage braking as it entered Finmere which enabled expresses to continue without stopping. After setting down at Finmere, slip coaches were worked forward to Woodford. The fastest service to Marylebone from Finmere in 1922 took one hour and nine minutes on an express which only stopped at Aylesbury, although the first service of the day took slightly longer, departing at 07.59 and not arriving in Marylebone until 09.48.

Decline and closure

Although the station saw regular use during the Second World War due to its proximity to military camps and airfields, patronage began to decline after the war in the face of increased competition from buses and the private motorcar. Eventually, the only really busy periods came at the start and end of the school terms at Stowe. Proposals to close the station circulated by the British Transport Commission in 1961 and Finmere Parish Council joined with Oxfordshire County Council in objecting to closure. The station was nonetheless recommended for closure in the Beeching Report and it subsequently closed to passenger traffic in March 1963, goods facilities being withdrawn a year later.

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Present day

The twin road overbridge has survived and remains in an overgrown state. [Cite book | author=Oppitz, Leslie | authorlink= | coauthors= | title=Lost Railways of the Chilterns (Lost Railways Series) | date=2000 | publisher=Countryside Books | location=Newbury, Berkshire | isbn=978-1-85306-643-6 | pages=p. 95]

References