Following on from the COVID pandemic there were a few locations where it was not possible to undertake full unveiling ceremonies. To complete the recognition of those outstanding locations, it is intended that photoshoots are organised. The first one took place on Thursday 19 October at Goostrey Station where the ticket office restoration had been awarded the 2020 Network Rail Community Award.
NRHA Sponsorship Manager & Trustee Tim Hedley-Jones MVO, together with Awards Manager & Trustee Malcolm Wood, met with members of the Friends of Goostrey Station. The group are enthusiastic in its work as adopters, with local groups regularly visiting the station to visit the Art Studio housed in the former station building, and also by taking care of the external areas which are carefully tended with wildlife aspects included. The bug hotels and bird and bat boxes around the site are testimony to the care being taken.
The award plaque is located on the abutment wall to the road bridge together with some artefacts from the original railway structures including part of a decorative keystone from the original bridge span.
Two of the National Railway Heritage Awards’ trustees – Malcolm Wood on the left and Tim Hedley-Jones on the right – with the plaque as Goostrey station.
The London & North Western Railway was an extensive user of timber in the construction of its station buildings. Inevitably, over the years, many of these have disappeared but amongst the best survivors are the buildings at Goostrey. The restoration of these by Network Rail won the Network Rail Community Award in 2020. The awards were announced in December 2020 when the actual ceremony was held virtually as a result of Covid restrictions then in force.
On the same day as the visit to Goostrey, Tim Hedley-Jones MVO and Malcolm Wood also visited the community café run by Station South CIC, winners of the Southeastern Commercial Restoration Award in the 2022 competition. The restoration of the redundant former station, built by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway in 1892 was closed to passengers in 1958. It was located on the Fallowfield Loop which itself was closed in 1968, formerly serving Manchester Central.
Station South CIC restored the building to create a café on the street level building with associated cycle repair facilities, as the former route is now a cycleway, and also a popular walking route.
New toilet facilities have been provided below the building, whilst the booking hall area is a very atmospheric space very much in the style of the Arts & Crafts movement but with gothic detailing to the ceiling and roof structure.
The plaque on display at Levenshulme South with, on the left, Abigail Pound, from the Station South CIC, and Tim Hedley-Jones, Director of the Railway Heritage Trust and a trustee of the National Railway Heritage Awards.
The restored ex-Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway station at Levenshulme South, the restoration of which won the Station South CIC the Southeastern Commercial Restoration Award at the 2022 National Railway Heritage Awards announced in December 2022.