Tynemouth Guide

Tynemouth Station

1. The Railways

Tynemouth Station is one of the most glorious railway stations in the country. It was built by the North Eastern Railway in 1882 as a showpiece for their new passenger line from Newcastle to the Coast. This catered to the thousands of tourists who were now coming to Tynemouth, when for the first time people were able to easily reach the Coast and return in a day.

The Victorians didn’t do things by halves and they built this station with scale in mind. They had a huge first class waiting room. They built four lines into the station and you can see the original lines that have been infilled, as well as the old goods entrance on the west side.

On the West side they also had a hydraulic lift for luggage pulled by a wheel in the tower. They would load the lift with heavy trunks and this luggage would then be passed over the bridge. If you look at the bridge, the middle section is flat, so that the trunks could move acrosss to the passenger side and people could then pick them up and move out the station.

The Victorians decorated the station with all kinds of foliage and flowers. There’s also a wonderful tiled of map of the North Eastern Railways. NER were a massive company at the time and they were pioneers of station design. NER were very proud of their stations and this was really the jewel in the crown for them. NER also built the very first station in Tynemouth, an elegant sandstone building which we’ll come to at the end of this guide.

2. Renovation of the Station

Unbelievably, Tynemouth Station decayed dreadfully between the 1960s and 1980s. The electrified trains that had come into use had been replaced with diesel trains and the place became very drab. There was asbestos roofing as all of the glass panes had been knocked out, and the whole was filthy and very badly neglected. There was even an awful plan to knock it all down and this was, it seems, supported by the Council. Fortunately, a community group formed called ‘Friends of Tynemouth Station’ to save the place.

They were able to secure the station, refurbish it and put the glass roof back together, so that we now have this wonderful showpiece which is the pride of the Metro network and one of the best Victorian stations in the country.

Tynemouth Guide

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Penbal 1 – Lee Stoneman

No air-built castles, and no fairy bowers,
But thou, fair Tynemouth, and thy well-known towers,
Now bid th’ historic muse explore the maze
Of long past years, and tales of other days.
Pride of Northumbria!—from thy crowded port,
Where Europe’s brave commercial sons resort,
Her boasted mines send forth their sable stores,
To buy the varied wealth of distant shores.
Here the tall lighthouse, bold in spiral height,
Glads with its welcome beam the seaman’s sight.
Here, too, the firm redoubt, the rampart’s length,
The death-fraught cannon, and the bastion’s strength,
Hang frowning o’er the briny deep below,
To guard the coast against th’ invading foe.
Here health salubrious spreads her balmy wings,
And woos the sufferer to her saline springs;
And, here the antiquarian strays around
The ruin’d abbey, and its sacred ground.