Notes: Known by local people as ‘The Manors’, the name refers to the area on the edge of Newcastle’s city centre which was almost obliterated by the station as it grew into an extravagant nine-platform affair. Passengers travelling from Newcastle towards Benton gained a vivid impression of the station’s vastness, as first the Coast Circle via Wallsend platforms (8 and 9) curved away, followed by the East Coast main line platforms (6 and 7), before the train drew in to platform 1, with numbers 2 (for trains from Benton to Newcastle) and 3 to 5 (for Blyth and Newbiggin services) to the right. Today a single island platform on the East Coast main line is all that remains. From 1909 until 1969 Manors was officially two separate stations – East and North – but the latter closed in January 1978.

An Act of Parliament on 21 June 1836 authorized the construction of the Newcastle & North Shields Railway (N&NS) which opened on 20 June 1839. The Newcastle terminus was intended to be at Pilgrim Street but, owing to the possibility of a central Newcastle station being provided for all railways serving the city, the N&NS ended a short distance to

In 1864 the Blyth & Tyne Railway (B&T) entered Newcastle from the north, opening its New Bridge Street terminus about 300yd north of Manors. This station would eventually, in 1909, be superseded by Manors (North). The North Eastern Railway (NER), which absorbed the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway (as the N&B had become) in 1854 went on, twenty years later, to absorb the B&T.

As traffic grew, the two miles between Newcastle and Heaton, through Manors, became congested. In 1887 the route was quadrupled, and Manors was remodelled. The old down platform and building were retained (as platform 1) but a long island platform (2 and 3, later re-numbered 7 and 8) replaced the old up one, and platform 4 (later 9) was added, its tall, 3-

The next significant development was beside the railway rather than on it. In 1901 Manors power station opened to supply electricity to the city's tramway system. This competition stimulated not only the electrification of the existing railway lines between the city and the coast but also the eventual construction of the Manors-New Bridge Street link with new platforms at Manors (North) which opened on 1 July 1909.

The extensions to Manors were on a generous scale. Two through platforms (1and 2) and three bays (3, 4 and 5) made up Manors (North): the older platforms became Manors (East), numbered 6 to 9. The new line came across the corner of Trafalgar Street bridge on girders, then over the site of the Newcastle & Berwick station building which was replaced with an office

As noted earlier, electrification of the Newcastle tramways, spurred the NER to ‘fight the devil with fire’: the company electrified the route from Newcastle Central to New Bridge Street via Wallsend / Carville and Tynemouth using a 600v DC third rail system and increased the frequency of the service. From 1909 electric trains were introduced through the new

Although in practice one station, and the nameboards bore the name ‘Manors’, the old and new parts were officially Manors East and North from 1 January 1909 until 20 February 1969. Some tickets referred to East and North, as did LNER timetables until June 1947. In British Railways days working timetables still distinguished East from North. Public timetables indicated by footnotes that express services from Monkseaton via the East Coast main line called at the East rather than the North platforms.

On a typical weekday in the early-1960s, outside rush hours, an electric multiple unit called every twenty minutes to the Coast via Benton (platform 1), and to the coast via Wallsend (platform 8); from the Coast via Benton (platform 2) and from the coast via Wallsend (platform 9), totalling twelve services per hour. Rush-hour Coast Circle services were frequent but at

The variety of passenger services began to decline when, on 2 November 1964, Blyth / Newbiggin trains were withdrawn, making Manors (North) platforms 3 to 5 redundant. The few Riverside Branch trains ceased from 23 July 1973. Much more significantly trains were withdrawn permanently from Manors (North) when the Coast service via Benton ended on 23 January 1978 in preparation for Metro works: Coast trains via Wallsend continued to use Manors (East) until 11 August 1980. On 14 November 1982 a regular local passenger service resumed at Manors, but using the new underground Metro station on the Newcastle to Coast route.

Until the mid-1970s Manors was busy and well maintained; in 1967, 201,173 tickets were issued there, increasing in 1972 to 346,217 when the Coast Circle services were revitalized in the Tynerider promotion of 1970. The North Eastern Region’s favourite ‘oriental blue’ paint was applied to iron columns and woodwork - though this did not really

From August 1980 only some thirty local services on the East Coast main line called at Manors, but the number dwindled by winter 2010 to four southbound on Mondays-to-Fridays (two on Saturdays) and four northbound on Mondays-to-Saturdays, with no Sunday services.

The near-extinction of Manors (East) passenger services was accompanied by a dramatic contraction of the station. By late-1979 the tracks had been removed from the North platforms, and demolition of the buildings was advanced. By Easter 1980 the only old buildings remaining were on ‘local’ platforms 1 and 9. Northbound passengers wishing to catch local trains on the main line had to make do with a crude, breezeblock shelter, while southbound passengers – if there were any – and Coast-bound passengers, who shared platforms 7 and 8, had to shelter in the subway. In September 1985 the once-dignified entrance building on platform 1 was being demolished. The cupola, stripped of its clock, rose proudly above the crumbling remains of the booking hall. On the façade a tangerine British Rail Manors sign was still fixed to the gable in front of the turret, accompanied by a modern British Rail sign, reassuring doubters that trains still called. Access to the station was afforded by a lengthy footbridge over the ‘Central Motorway East’. On reaching the unstaffed station the would-be passenger had to navigate through the roofless North booking hall, avoiding chunks of fallen masonry, then along the rubble-strewn former platform 1, overhung by roofing supports awaiting demolition. Beyond this a causeway crossed the old track-bed to platform 2. To catch a train to Newcastle Central a footbridge then had to be crossed.

By 1991 Manors (East) possessed one shortened island platform, with overhead wires installed for the main line electrification. The Technopole Business Park on the site of Manors North, and extending into the space between the North and East stations, might have been expected to justify an improved train service at the surviving platform, but the frequent services at the

Recently Manors station has attracted much interest, with lively LNER Encyclopedia blog-site discussions on its every feature. Perhaps the use of its gloomy subway and the long staircase in East station leading to Melbourne Street as a film set in the 1971 cult movie Get Carter, starring Michael Caine, is part of its mystique. Contributors seem amazed that so little remains of such a vast and formerly important transport facility. After years of a minimal peak-hour service, in summer 2011 trains began to call at Manors at hourly intervals, suggesting that the station in its greatly reduced form might have a future.

Tickets from Michael Stewart, 1950 Bradshaw from Nick Catford. Station plan drawn by Alan Young.

Click here for the transcript of W. Fawcett's history of Manors Station

See also Manors North