A NEW museum, seating area and more gardens are the next stages of a mammoth railway station transformation scheme being carried out by dedicated volunteers.
Already, the Friends of Guide Bridge have created a garden on the Manchester-bound platform side and painted underneath a bridge, with a view to using the area as an events space.
Now later this year should see the opening of a museum in a building on the Glossop-bound side that used to house offices.
Barry Williams leads the team if hardy volunteers who have given up their time every Saturday to renovate the Audenshaw station.
“It’s exciting times,” he told The Correspondent. “Hopefully we’ll have the museum open in the next few months.
“Once we get the lease, we can get it open and it will tell the story of the whole line its on and the area it ran through.
“Andy Kettle, who used to live nearby, started the Friends of Guide Bridge Station and when he was younger he used to spend a lot of time here trainspotting.
“He started it five or six years ago and he still does a lot of work with the group, even though he lives in north Wales now.
“Usually, there are only four or five volunteers that come down to help with the work every week.
“But the work that’s been done by the ones who come is brilliant. We’ve all got stuck in. It’s injected that love and care into it – and Network Rail have spent £233,000 in helping us doing the station up.”
The museum – which already has plenty of artefacts, including old uniforms, an old toolbox brilliantly created from an old carriage by an apprentice decades ago and a World War II era first aid kit, complete with original materials – is the next stage of the Friends’ plan.
Volunteer Peter Birchill, who has painted everything himself, has set out the backdrop for what should become an outdoor seating area for a tea room.
The garden, which features a bench in memory of his late wife, is the result of five years’ hard work.
It already has a vintage Guide Bridge sign and the idea will be for fruit trees and herbs to be able to be picked by anyone.
It also features ingenious planters made up of discarded tyres and the drums of old washing machines.
Another area on the other side of the tracks is being cleared with a view to getting a building on it while merchandise is already for sale to help boost the coffers.
A light railway – using either a stretch of track that lies around the corner or a much grander scheme involving digging out old platforms and running it alongside the existing line to Hyde – is also on the agenda.
Barry added: “We’ve a lot of artefacts and the building it will be in was pretty much underwater as there was a hole in the roof.
“It was full of rubbish too, so it needed clearing and adapting.
“The Hyde line would take a long time ands a lot of work but if we can get the building, the old platforms are still there and we could get a couple of bits of track and a locomotive there.”
The museum will go alongside a history board detailing the story of Guide Bridge station, which is already in place.
And all stations on what was the Woodhead line – which opened in 1844 but was closed in 1981 – will have them.
Eventually, it is hoped the story of the station will be painted on windows of its building on Guide Lane.
And they will be formally launched as Barry explained: “We’ve an event on April 22 to launch all 13 stations on the Glossop line. The boards have history of the stations and the areas around them.”
Brilliant work, guys. Well appreciated
Excellent work by all concerned. I am very proud of the “history board” , which is the final one to be installed on the Manchester Piccadilly – Glossop – Hadfield line. The Guide bridge Board was unveiled by Ian Williams, Chair of the Friends of Glossop Station , following a meeting of all the “Friends” groups of the stations along the Glossop-Hadfield-Manchester Piccadilly line on Friday April 22nd. The idea of the Information Boards was inspired by the Hadfield and Padfield Heritage Trail, set up and signposted over ten years ago, and following a similar pattern of interpretation set by the Gorton heritage Trail. The project began in 2017, and in 2018 the first three boards were sited at Glossop, Hadfield and Dinting Stations, funded by the High Peak and Hope Valley Community Rail Partnership. The dedication of these boards attracted some important figures from the world of rail transport, including Kulvinder Bassi of the Department for Transport, and Mr E.L. Johnson, author of a number of excellent books on the Woodhead line, of which the stations were once part.
All the boards have information about the history of each station, and interesting and historical features of their locality. They are all designed and made to the same eye-catching pattern by Anne Michaelides, and feature photographs of the stations in past times.
The first three boards were swiftly followed in 2019 by those for Hattersley, Fairfield, Gorton and Ashburys. The Ashburys board supplies the answer to a local riddle: why the name when there is no such district? The answer is that the station was provided for the nearby Ashburys Carriage and Wagon Works, founded in 1843 by John Ashbury, closed many years ago, but the memory lingers on in the station’s name!
In 2020 the pandemic intervened, and the final five boards went into storage, and were installed during 2021.
Ian Williams, Chair of the Friends of Glossop Station gave special thanks to Eddie Johnson, rail historian and author, who had given permission for the use of a number of photographs from his books which give a comprehensive view of the Woodhead line in both its steam and electric days, and the late Paul Abel, who had retired as Editor of Railway Magazine in 2017 and had been especially helpful with the boards for Ashburys and Gorton, and to Steve Ford of SEMCORP, the South East Manchester Community Rail Partnership, who performed the unveiling ceremony, and concluded by thanking Northern Rail and Network Rail for their help and cooperation, and expressing the hope that the boards will help Northern and Network Rail to tell the story of the Woodhead line.
Trying to contact Mr. Meadham.