Notes: The first Manors station was the western terminus of the
Newcastle & North Shields Railway. A terminus was planned
near the new Royal Arcade but the station was never built, because
of speculation about a Central Station to serve all the Newcastle
railways, existing and planned. Instead, the company curtailed
their line on the east side of a street called Manors where they
built a temporary terminus.
Although the line opened in 1839, the station buildings were
not complete until the beginning of 1842. In the event, the company
was taken over by the Newcastle & Berwick Railway who brought
their line into a junction at Heaton and so gained access over
the North Shields route to the centre of Newcastle. From another
junction on the east side of Trafalgar Street they extended further
into the city centre, to a junction with the Newcastle and Darlington
line at the new Central Station.
The old Manors terminus then became a coal depot and a new through
station was provided above Trafalgar Street, on the site of the
eventual platforms 6 and 7, access between platforms was by way
of one of the arches of the new viaduct - the start of a fine
tradition of subways at Manors.
The railway layout at Manors did not change much until the 1880's
when the North Eastern Railway embarked on the quadrupling of
the main line to Heaton and the enlargement of Central Station.
By then they had absorbed the Blyth & Tyne Railway whose Newcastle
terminus lay in New Bridge Street, barely a thousand feet away
from Manors.
Widening between Manors and Heaton was completed in 1887 and
a new station opened at Manors, on 13 June. The new station retained
the down platform and office building of its predecessor, perhaps
pending their eventual replacement if a link were formed to New
Bridge Street. The up platform was replaced by a long island (later
platforms 7 and 8) and a platform (later 9) high above Melbourne
Street. Access between them was by means of the arch spanning
Croft Lane. This public route provided a subway from which stairways
led up to the new platforms. The steep fall of the land meant
that the eastern entrance into Croft Lane lay much lower than
the western one and so a second passage was provided, leading
directly from the foot of the platform 7/8 stairs to a landing
on the stairs leading up to platform 9.
Quadrupling of the line between Manors and Central Station was
completed in 1894 but the next significant development was alongside
the railway rather than on it. This was the opening in 1901 of
Manors Power Station to supply electricity to the City's tramway
system. The competition stimulated not only the electrification
of the Coast line but also the eventual construction of the Manors
- New Bridge Street link with new platforms at Manors which opened
on 1 July 1909.
The extensions to Manors were made on a lavish scale, with two
through platforms and three bays. These formed platforms 1 to
5 of the combined station but were called
Manors North, while the older platforms became numbers 6 to 9
and were renamed Manors East.
The suffixes North and East were dropped from the public timetable
from 16 June 1947 although they continued in use in the working
timetable and other official documents. In February 1969 the suffixes
were officially dropped and the station was then known as Manors.
The closure of the old Manors North platforms took place on 23
January 1978 in readiness for the construction of the new Metro.
The Metro used a new underground alignment bypassing Manors and
then taking over the old North Tyneside loop via Tynemouth, this
opened on 14.11.1982.
After the closure of the Manors North platforms the station was
then only served by a limited Morpeth local service on the main
line. A notable feature was that from 1904 to 1964 the overhead
electrics on the quayside branch worked into the station. This
steeply graded branch was worked by steeple cab electric locos,
Manors was where traction was changed to steam/deisel. The station
had both third rail and overhead wire electrics until 1964. There
was also an early example of an LNER power operated signal box
which was commissioned in 1937, closing in 1973.
Other web sites: Trainspots
- for the current Manors Station
Click here
for the transcript of W. Fawcett's history of Manors Station
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