Authorising Act: Huddersfield & Sheffield Joint Railway. Part of Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway from 1847

Passenger services: British Railways (North Eastern Region)Goods services: British Rail (North Eastern Region)

August 1982, July 2015, February 2016

Notes:This was the only intermediate station on the Holmfirth Branch and it was provided from the opening day in 1850, although the OS plan of 1854 fails to show it.  The name of the village is now rendered as ‘Thongsbridge’, the two-word form, which was always used for the station name, was preferred by the Ordnance Survey until 1967.

When the railway arrived, development at Thongs Bridge consisted of a couple of woollen mills within half-a-mile west of the station, and a scattering of cottages near the mills and to the south of the station along Heys Road.  A rock cutting of substantial proportions was required to enable the railway to pass through a spur of high ground, and the up (north-west) platform was placed within it, north-east of the Heys Road bridge. It was provided with a single-storey stone building with a hipped roof and tall chimneys. A hipped awning with a serrated valance sheltered the platform in front of the building. The long and narrow down platform was on the opposite side of Heys Road, reached by a sleeper-built barrow crossing from the south-west end of the up platform.  The signal box was added in 1880, installed by the Gloucester Wagon Co; it stood just beyond the south-western ramp of the down platform. Goods facilities were located on the up side, facing the down platform.

All trains in February 1863 call at Thongs Bridge except the 8.25am from Huddersfield which stops only at Berry Brow and Brockholes Junction en route to Holmfirth. The down journey time from Thongs Bridge to Holmfirth is remarkably inconsistent, ranging on weekdays from three minutes for the 7.35pm departure to five minutes for the 2.50 and 4.48pm trains, whilst on Sunday the three trains are advertised as taking three, four and eight minutes respectively.

The layout of the passenger facilities at Thongs Bridge proved unsatisfactory, twice drawing criticism from the Board of Trade following accidents to passengers using the station. Consequently in 1893 the LYR made arrangements with Robert Leake & Co to build a new down platform beyond Heys Road bridge, opposite the up platform, and to widen the gap between the running lines from 5ft 9in to the standard 6ft 0in. Also included in the new works were a new booking office on the up side, -entered from Heys Road overbridge, which gave access both to a diagonally-placed staircase down to the platform - and the iron-lattice footbridge across the two railway tracks to the new down platform. The up platform was heightened as part of the improvements. A rather attractive stone-built open shelter was provided on the new down platform, its hipped roof and hipped awning complementing the structures on the up platform. At the same time the goods facilities were improved, with sidings being added on the down side, behind the signal box. A 3-ton yard crane was installed. Because the goods facilities were now on both sides of the running lines, a cart way was built to link the two sides. The crossing was protected by a lifting barrier, worked from the signal box and interlocked with signals for the running lines. The principal traffic handled in the goods yard was coal and the woollen goods produced in the nearby Thongs Bridge and Albion mills.

KEY:       ¶ via Halifax          § via Clifton Road         ‡ via Mirfield

Towards the end of the nineteenth century Thongs Bridge began to develop as a village. An informal pattern of houses appeared, along with a couple of inns, a cricket ground and a size and bone works; this latter establishment undoubtedly emitted noxious smells.

Thongs Bridge station continued to be operated by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway until January 1922 when, in preparation for the ‘Grouping’, that company was absorbed into the London & North Western Railway. In the Grouping of January 1923 the station became part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS).

In the table above, all trains on the Holmfirth Branch call at Thongs Bridge.
After World War 1 a housing estate was built to the north of the station, within easy walking distance. Although this added considerably to the population within the station’s catchment area, the provision of buses here, as elsewhere, adversely affected bookings at the station. Nevertheless, until the outbreak of World War 2 there was a generous train service. The frequency of trains was reduced as a wartime economy measure, and this included the cessation of Sunday trains, which would not be reinstated in peace time.

At nationalisation in January 1948 Thongs Bridge was placed in British Railways’ London Midland Region, but in April 1950 a major boundary revision transferred the station to the North Eastern Region. The first appearance of the Holmfirth Branch in the BR North Eastern Region timetable was on 25 September 1950 (below) which showed that all trains called at Thongs Bridge.

In summer 1954 the last train of the day to Holmfirth (6.05pm Saturday-excepted from Huddersfield) ceased to call at Thongs Bridge; this call was never to be reinstated. The first departure from Holmfirth (6.37am) no longer called at Thongs Bridge on Saturday. These reductions in service possibly enabled a saving to be made by staffing the station for fewer hours.

By 1956 the booking facilities had returned to the original building on the up platform. This building had been stripped of its awning by this time, but the awning remained in place on the waiting shed on the down platform.

In August 1959 the proposal to close the Holmfirth Branch to passengers was announced. Ironically, only a few months earlier the 450-pupil Holmfirth Secondary Modern school had opened in January 1959 at Thongs Bridge, a couple of minutes’ walk from the station, and by 1961 the school roll was to rise to 1,000. This would undoubtedly have contributed a healthy amount of passenger traffic, but the closure went ahead on 2 November 1959. In the final timetable (summer 1959) up trains called at Thongs Bridge at 7.15am (Saturday excepted), 8.30am, 1.38pm (Saturday only) and 5.07pm. Trains left for Holmfirth at 7.57am, 12.59pm (Saturday only), 4.24pm and 5.43pm. The BR(NE) passenger timetable book effective from 2 November 1959 erroneously showed Thongs Bridge and Holmfirth stations as open, now served by diesel trains!

Gas lighting was retained at the station until closure. Thongs Bridge station was staffed throughout its life, and the station was well maintained. Ironically, one week after the TUCC endorsed the closure proposal, the staff of Thongs Bridge station achieved the distinction of a 2nd Class award and the coveted £4.0s.0d prize (one of 40 to be so honoured) in the BR North Eastern Region Station Gardens Competition.

Goods traffic was handled at Thongs Bridge station until the complete closure of the Holmfirth Branch on 3 May 1965. By September 1964 the passenger station had lost its footbridge, but the station building and elevated former booking hall were still standing. The platforms remained in situ until at least the early 1970s; they had been removed by 1982.

The passenger station site in its deep, rock cutting remained undeveloped until 2015 when Eastwood Homes began building a small estate of 16 units, advertised as ‘The Bridges’. The staff of the former station would no doubt be gratified to know that the estate will be surrounded by ‘landscaped gardens’.

Route map drawn by Alan Young. Tickets from Michael Stewart. Bradshaw from Alan Young,

Click here for a brief history of the Holmfirth branch.

To see other stations on the Holmfirth branch
click on the station name:
Holmfirth & Brockholes