Line opened 27.7.1849. Station opened then or soon after.

Close to Velvet Hall, NW of A698. 200yd NE of junction with lane leading to the village of Horncliffe. Station Cottages are extant close to former railway bridge.

York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway

4.7.1955

29.3.1965

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

Main station building is extant, with extension, and in residential use. Part of the up platform is in place.

Northumberland

NT943491

Notes: This was the first station on the line from Tweedmouth to Kelso and St Boswells situated 4 miles 10 chains from Tweedmouth. As seen on the East Coast main line, the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway (and its successor, the North Eastern Railway) had no qualms about providing substantial stations in sparsely populated areas, confident that intending passengers would be prepared to make their way to the station and that the surrounding countryside would produce or require a satisfactory quantity of goods traffic. Velvet Hall station stood in a lightly populated area about a mile from the village of Horncliffe. It took its name from a nearby farm. Ordnance Survey maps show both the farm and station to be ‘Velvethall’ until 1925, although the official rendering of the station name seems always to have been two words.

Velvet Hall station had two facing platforms, the up (Tweedmouth-bound) being 77yd and the down 82yd in length. The main building on the down platform was designed by Newcastle architects John and Benjamin Green, and the builders were Armstrong & Hepworth. The architects had designed many splendid stations on the recently-opened Newcastle – Tweedmouth section of the East Coast main line, but their NER Kelso Branch stations were to be less sumptuous as cutbacks in expenditure took hold. At Velvet Hall the two-storey station building was of stone with a slate roof and it combined the stationmaster’s residence and offices. Although the building was rather plain the gabled dormers and mullioned windows on both the platform and exterior elevations added some character. The building was extended north-eastwards in 1905 to provide larger accommodation for the stationmaster and his family. In its final form the ground plan included a general and a ladies’ waiting room; booking and parcels office; scullery and kitchen; and, in a single-storey section, a gentlemen’s toilet and coalhouse. It is thought that this was the third occasion when additions were made to the original building. The stone-built goods shed stood immediately south-west of the station building.

On the up platform the NER provided an enclosed timber waiting shelter with a notably high pent roof sloping down towards the back of the platform. The signal box (1880) was immediately south-west of this platform and was provided with a 14-lever frame.

The goods yard at Velvet Hall was situated between the road underbridge south-west of the station and the passenger facilities, and provision was made for a range of traffic. A loop from the down line passed through a four-cell lime depot, and branches from it close to the passenger station gave access to a five-cell coal depot and an ‘island’ loading dock between two sidings, one of which ended in the goods warehouse, behind the down platform and adjacent to the station building. On the up side a loop served the cattle dock.

Bradshaw of March 1850 gives the train service between ‘Sprouston (Kelso)’ and Tweedmouth in a narrative form with only the times of departure from the two termini stated and no reference to Velvet Hall or any other intermediate stations. Departures from Sprouston on weekdays are at 1.15am (stated as 1¼ morn.) – surely a mistake? – and at 2.45 and 6.20pm. On Sunday there are departures at 9.00am and 7.00pm. The February 1863 timetable gives specific departure times from Velvet Hall, as seen below.

By 1887 the frequency of the train service had increased. The August timetable, below, shows departures shortly before the Alnwick & Cornhill (Coldstream) branch opened.

Velvet Hall was never a busy station. Prior to World War 1, of the average of £24,000 worth of traffic on the NER Kelso Branch Velvet Hall contributed about £1,000, some 4% of the annual traffic, whilst Kelso and Coldstream combined accounted for about 75%.

NER statistics for 1911 show that the station served a population of 899 and 9,582 tickets were sold in that year. The Railway Clearing House Handbook of 1904 indicates that a full range of good traffic could be handled, although no crane was provided. Goods traffic handled in 1913 reflected the productive arable land in the locality. Barley was dispatched (597 tons), and potatoes (206 tons) and oats (112 tons) were also important freight; 248 wagons of livestock were also loaded at the station. As at other stations coal was brought in and distributed in the local area. A track plan dated 1905 indicates that the lime depot was no longer in place. Velvet Hall station also supervised the siding at West Ord (where there was a beet dock).

From November 1913 until July 1918 Mr J Frith was stationmaster at Velvet Hall. He was succeeded by Mr W Fogg in September 1918 who remained in post until July 1922. The timetable for July 1920 shows that Sunday services were still provided on the Kelso Branch, and that two of the Berwick - Coldstream – Alnwick trains called at Velvet Hall – one such train called in the opposite direction.

In 1923 at the Grouping the NER became part of the new London & North Eastern Railway. The stationmaster at this time was Mr T Short who had been in post since August 1922. In March 1929 a new 15-lever frame was installed in the signal box. During the 1920s, here as elsewhere road motor transport began to provide an attractive alternative to rail, and passenger use of the poorly-sited stations on the former NER Kelso Branch declined. By summer 1931 Young’s Motor Service provided buses between Norham, Horncliffe (served by Velvet Hall station), Ord and Berwick with five Monday-to-Friday trips between Norham and Berwick, six on Saturday and four on Sunday. On weekdays four further runs were provided between Horncliffe and Berwick. The same frequency operated in the opposite direction apart from there being only three Berwick – Horncliffe trips.

In March 1931 Mr T Short’s time as Velvet Hall stationmaster came to an end. It is likely that at this time supervision of Velvet Hall was given to Norham, whose stationmaster was Mr H T Short. He was in post until March 1943 and three months later Mr N Liddle was appointed to be in charge of Norham and Velvet Hall, the position he held until March 1946. After an interregnum of more than a year Mr W A Watson became stationmaster of Norham and Velvet Hall, with Twizell station added to his responsibilities.

SO  Saturday only      ¶ One class only

Velvet Hall station retained its Victorian character (with Edwardian extension!) during the LNER era, but the company installed its style of running-in nameboards with metal letters screwed onto a wooden board. Elegant Victorian oil lanterns of a casement design continued to adorn the platforms. In January 1948 at the station came under British Railways (BR) North Eastern Region (NE) administration.

By the early 1950s it was clear that passenger bookings at Velvet Hall and some of the other stations between Tweedmouth and Kelso were too few to justify keeping them open. In 1951 Velvet Hall issued only 176 tickets and in 1953/54 the annual takings at the station amounted to £125. British Railways proposed to save £7,744 a year by closing Velvet Hall, Twizell, Sunilaws, Sprouston and Carham stations, all on the former NER section, and substantially reducing the number of trains.  Bradshaw of February 1955 shows four trains in each direction on weekdays, all of which call at Velvet Hall.

SO  Saturday only      SX  Saturday excepted

The June 1955 service differs only in that the 10.13am and 3.43pm departures are retimed on Saturday only. On 4 July 1955 Velvet Hall and the four other stations noted above were closed to passengers. Goods traffic continued to be handled at Velvet Hall until the line between Tweedmouth and Kelso closed to all traffic on 29 March 1965. The goods warehouse and the up platform shelter were demolished before the tracks were lifted, but the station remained substantially intact with the main building, both passenger platforms, weigh office and loading dock in place. A flat-roofed single-storey extension had been added to the north-east end of the building by 1976. Today the building is in residential use and a section of the up platform and weigh office are standing.

Tickets from Michael Stewart. Station certificates from Railways of Berwick & the Eastern Borders Facebook Group. Route map drawn by Alan Young

Click here for a brief history of the
Tweedmouth - St Boswells line

To see other stations on the Tweedmouth - St Boswells line click on the station name: To see other stations on the Tweedmouth - St Boswells line click on the station name: Tweedmouth, Norham, Twizell, Coldstream, Sunilaws, Carham, Sprouston, Kelso, Wallace Nick, Roxburgh, Rutherford & Maxton & St Boswells

See also Jedburgh branch: Kirkbank, Nisbet, Jedfoot & Jedburgh