Keswick railway station? I wish!

“Surely there is no other place in this whole wonderful world quite like Lakeland,” wrote Alfred Wainwright in the introduction to his book on the Eastern Fells. An exhibition of his life and work is currently on show at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery.

I first came to Keswick in 1960. My parents had chosen a Lake District family holiday staying in Troutbeck bungalow at Grange in Borrowdale. It was also the first time we had ever been on holiday other than to stay with relations. I have loved the Derwentwater area ever since and have been back there regularly; youth hostelling with friends, playing football on Fitz Park, exploring with my wife, then dragging our own children up some steep slopes to give them a compulsory “taste of the hills.” More recently, I am choosing my peaks a bit more carefully than in years past, based on avoiding unnecessarily knee-jarring descents.

I was eleven years old at the time of my first visit. Our train from Penrith to Keswick was headed by an Ivatt Class 2MT 2-6-0. Amazingly, at the first stop at Blencow, the driver beckoned me forward to the engine. He had noticed me, I think, with my head on a stalk, permanently leaning out of the first carriage window behind the tender. This remains one of the railway highlights of my life, a quite spontaneous and unexpected cab ride as far as Threlkeld.

The driver explained that for me to arrive at Keswick on the footplate might gain him some unwanted attention from his superiors, but I’d had my fix and so I returned delirious to the rest of the family in standard class for the run into the town.

The most memorable thing about the ride was how rough it was. Whether that was caused by an out of condition engine, poor track maintenance or just that it was par for the course, I still don’t know. The locomotive bucked sideways quite alarmingly and I loved every minute of it. I perched on the driver’s seat and just hung on. The rest of the holiday was tame by comparison. Even climbing Scafell Pike came a distant second.  

The Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway opened in 1865, primarily to carry mineral traffic, though passenger trains ran from the start and later gained greater importance. The Cockermouth to Workington section closed in 1966 followed by Keswick to Penrith in 1972. My two visits - by steam train in 1960 and on a diesel multiple unit in 1962 - were timely indeed. In addition to the return journeys on our way home, I also went train spotting to Carlisle - changing trains each time at Penrith - a further three times during that last week in July 1962, so I travelled that section of line 10 times altogether [5 trips each way], and for that I shall be eternally grateful.

This boundary marker, with the original railway company’s initials engraved into the Coniston greenstone block, still stands at the end of Station Road in Keswick, next to Fitz Park and at the entrance to the station approach. The asphalt pavement and kerbstone have been replaced just this year, alongside the considerable amount of reconstruction work that was required after the devastating floods that hit the town and its surrounding area in December 2015.

The former station master’s house still stands and is now a very presentable bed and breakfast establishment, appropriately named and with this smart and thoughtfully designed sign at the entrance. Behind the house, the track bed west of the station is now occupied by the Keswick Leisure Pool and Fitness Centre.

The original station hotel is now the Keswick Country House Hotel. It was formerly owned by the railway company and its construction was completed in 1869. After the closure of the railway the hotel expanded into the adjacent station buildings on the remaining platform. The rest of the former station site provides public car parking space and it is also the starting point of a footpath and cycleway along the old track bed as far as Threlkeld [Route 71 of the Sustrans National Cycle Network and also part of what is known as the c2c, or Sea to Sea, route].

The 2015 floods removed two of the old bowstring bridges that once carried the railway through the Greta gorge and damaged a third one, dramatically curtailing the leisure path in the process. We walked the section out of Keswick that remains open, past the site of the old bobbin mill platform at Briery. We saw the evidence of the dramatic landslips that had accompanied the flooding and brought down trees into the torrent, no doubt causing further damage downstream and in the town.

Vegetation has been planted alongside the platform edge where we disembarked in 1960 but the flagstones are still in place and the station canopy is still intact, though in need of a little attention. The conservatory addition to the hotel complex currently serves as a snooker room.

On the conservatory window, there is a notice drawing attention to a group who would like to see the reinstatement of the railway between Keswick and Penrith, though they are quick to make clear that this will not be a heritage railway but a modern business venture offering a regular train service. The website of the organisation [www.keswickrailway.com] has been recently updated to take note of additional post-flood concerns.

The company running the project is called CKP Railways plc. Their website is very clearly set out and explains in detail how they envisage developments will take place. Perhaps my grandchildren’s first approach to the Lake District will not be too dissimilar from my own, after all. Now that would be something to write a Lake District postcard home about. That old road sign on the way into town at the junction of Crosthwaite Road and Brundholme Road may just find it has a new lease of life. Perhaps it will also receive a new coat of paint.