Passengers (temporary): London, Midland & Scottish Railway
Passengers (permanent): British Railways (London Midland Region)
Goods: British Rail (London Midland Region)

Notes: Rochdale station is inconveniently sited for the town centre shops, but the journey between the station and the centre can now be enjoyed on a Metrolink tram. When Wardleworth Brow station opened – as it was known until at least 1881 –as the first stop on the branch to Facit and Bacup, it was closer than the main line station to the town centre, and thus it was the largest and most important station on the branch. Indeed certain trains were extended from Rochdale to terminate at Wardleworth to keep paths clear for through trains at the main line station and to convey shoppers to the town centre. In its early days Wardleworth Brow was also referred to as Rochdale (Yorkshire Street), the Railway Clearing House Handbook of 1877 giving both names for the station. The accompanying Airey’s map of 1881 shows the station as Wardleworth Brow. On the 1893 map ‘Brow’ has been incompletely erased. The station has, it is thought, always been anonymous on OS 1” maps, and ‘Wardleworth’ has not even been named as a suburb of Rochdale.

At 460ft above sea level, Wardleworth was at the lowest altitude of any of the stations on the Rochdale – Bacup line; there was a descent of 12ft from Rochdale, then a steep ascent at up to 1 in 59 towards the next station north, Shawclough and Healey, which lay at 574ft.

Although the Rochdale-Facit branch was almost all built as single track it was double through Wardleworth, with two facing platforms. The single-storey stone building was on the down (south-west) platform, with a pitched slate roof. Facing James Street, the arched entrance under a gable was approached by a flight of steps, and at one time small awnings extended in front of it and on either side. An awning stretched the length of the building to provide shelter on the platform. On the opposite platform was a hipped-roofed enclosed timber waiting shed with a tall chimneystack.  Immediately south-east of the buildings a partly-covered footbridge connected the platforms. A description of the station in 1871 praised it for its ‘neat offices, carpeted floors and ample conveniences’. A signal box stood immediately north-west of the down platform ramp. It was a Yardley box of unknown construction and was in use until the girder-mounted box, further down the line, was built in 1899.

Wardleworth goods yard, including an exceptionally imposing warehouse, was behind and to the north-west of the down platform. The warehouse, at the junction of Lawton Street and Major Street, was constructed in 1870 and extended in 1884 when cattle pens were built. It was stone-built and was distinguished by its remarkable ‘ridge and furrow’ roofline. Two awnings extended towards the rails. Immediately south-east of the warehouse, and standing on the goods dock, the yard office was within a two-storey stone building, its pitched roof ending with raking parapets. The goods buildings were more imposing than those provided for passenger use.

At first the double-track section ended just north of the station, but in 1882 plans were drawn up to extend it northwards for about a quarter of a mile. While this work was in hand permission to add a further track was obtained. Additional goods facilities were built between the original goods yard and Taylor Street / Foxholes Road at a higher level in response to the rising gradient (1 in 59/62) to include a cart way and a travelling crane to span two tracks. Continued growth of coal and mineral traffic required further expansion at Wardleworth, so an extensive mineral yard with six 400yd sidings was constructed on the up side from 1902 stretching just less than 400yd from the passenger station almost to Taylor Street, with a further 300yd headshunt. In 1899 a girder-mounted 36-lever LYR timber signal box to control the running line and coal traffic was installed north-west of the passenger station and goods yard; the frame was extended to 40 levers in 1903 when the new sidings were constructed. The new signal box replaced the existing boxes at Wardleworth station and Regent Street.

Important customers of the line had rail-served premises north of Wardleworth station. West of the railway was John Bright & Bros Ltd Fieldhouse Mills. A private siding connected the mill to the branch just before the short tunnel under Whitworth Road. This siding was installed under an Agreement of 26 September 1901 with the LYR and survived until the late 1950s. The Rochdale Brick Co private siding was about 200yd west of Whitworth Road, on the down side, and it was used from 1912 until the late 1950s.

Wardleworth was an LYR station until 1922 when the company was absorbed by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR), prior to the Grouping of 1923 when the LNWR became part of the new London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS).

An accident occurred at Wardleworth station on 12 June 1932 when an engine was derailed and overturned as a result of a broken driving wheel axle; the driver lost his life.

By the late 1930s the volume of goods traffic at Wardleworth was in decline so the LMS reduced the size of the goods yard, and siding connections were removed on 21 March 1939. However passenger traffic remained satisfactory despite growing competition from road transport. Wardleworth continued to be a favoured alighting point for town centre shoppers from the Whitworth Valley, and the surge in popularity of cinemas (including Wardleworth’s own ‘Ceylon Cinema’) in the 1930s drew crowds on Saturdays to afternoon and evening shows. The Wakes Weeks holidays when the mills in Rochdale and the Whitworth Valley closed were most likely to be spent in Blackpool, and Wardleworth station was exceptionally busy on these summer Saturdays as passengers gathered to board the special trains; anecdotal evidence suggests that Wardleworth was used by some holidaymakers in preference to Rochdale station as they thought the platform would be less crowded.

During World War II the services between Rochdale and Bacup remained fairly frequent although at irregular intervals: a feature of the timetable since the early days of the line. In July 1943 trains left Rochdale for Bacup at the following times: 7.00 and 9.25am; 12.05pm, 1.25, 4.20, 6.30 (Saturday excepted [SX]), 6.45 (Saturday only [SO]), 8.17 and 10.40 (SO). All trains called at Wardleworth.  Trains departed from Bacup for Rochdale at 6.41, 7.17, 8.07 and 9.37am; 12.48 (SO), 1.30, 2.07, 3.13 (SO), 4.45 (SO), 5.12 (SX), 5.52, 6.25 (SO) and 7.44. No passenger trains ran on Sunday.

In peacetime the Facit Branch passenger service was improved, and the following timetable applied from 7 October 1946 until 4 May 1947:

Owing to competition from road transport, passenger services on the Rochdale-Bacup branch were withdrawn on 16 June 1947; the ‘coal crisis’ at the time was the reason emphasised by the LMS. Apart from Britannia (closed in 1917) all of the intermediate stations survived until the closure of the line. From 10 November 1956 the branch north of Wardleworth signal box was worked on a ‘One Engine in Steam’ basis. The double-track section of line from Rochdale East Junction to Wardleworth was operated only as single-track from 1960 when the up line was taken out of use. The station’s passenger buildings were probably demolished in the early 1960s. Goods traffic continued to be handled at Wardleworth supervised, it is thought, from Rochdale. Wardleworth signal box and the line to the north were supervised by the stationmaster / goods agent based at Shawclough & Healey. Wardleworth box was demoted to ground frame status on 27 February 1966. Later that year, on 7 November Wardleworth station closed entirely (although the demoted signal box remained in use).

In February 1967 the passenger platforms at Wardleworth, shorn of buildings, were trodden by railway enthusiasts on a brake van trip to Whitworth – by that time the only intermediate station on the branch still open to goods traffic. The line was closed entirely on 21 August 1967 and the tracks were removed by the end of the year. The derelict signal box, closed on the same day as the branch, remained in place until destroyed by fire on 8 January 1969. The platforms at Wardleworth survived until at least autumn 1970, by which time the rails had been removed and the goods warehouse had been demolished. The station site was used for industrial development by the mid 1970s and the bridge over Yorkshire Street, adjacent to the station, was dismantled. The section of James Street which gave access to the station was obliterated. The cutting north of the station was infilled in the late 1980s, and at the end of that decade there was very little evidence of the railway’s former existence.

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

Click here for a brief history and bibliography of the Bacup to Rochdale line.

To see other stations on the Bacup - Rochdale line click on
the station name:
Bacup, Britannia, Shawforth, Facit, Whitworth, Broadley, Shawclough & Healey & Rochdale 1st Station

See also special feature: Facit branch viaducts and the Siamese bridges