'Railway child' who grew up in stationmaster's house on Doncaster to Lincoln line shares memories as it fails to sell at auction

Beckingham Station on the Doncaster to Lincoln line closed to the public in 1959, though the route remains open, and was last occupied in 2018 by its previous owner. It requires a full renovation but contains a wealth of historic railway features.

It was listed for auction in August by agents Brown & Co - but failed to sell and remains on the market with a guide price of £180,000.

Now a woman who grew up in the house as the stationmaster's daughter in its final years of operation has got in touch with Brown & Co to share her memories.

Liz Hunt, 75, now lives in Sussex, but in the 1940s and 50s her father Robert Williams was employed by the Great Northern Railway.

He was sent to run Beckingham in 1949 and was deployed elsewhere only two years before it shut.

Mr Williams moved into the property, which dates back to 1875, with his wife Nancy, toddler Liz and baby son David.

Mrs Hunt saw the original Yorkshire Post article on the auction last month and it sparked her recollections of a childhood beside the tracks.

“Remembering the layout of the house and going through the back door, there was our kitchen with a cooker, washing machine, dresser, sink and sink board. A small step from the kitchen led to our living room with a kitchen range, a large ceiling- height cupboard on the right and a pantry opposite.

“In the pantry was a concrete slab where my mother kept ice. As children we used to slide along the quarry tiles in the kitchen but if we went too fast, we would catapult over the step into the living room. I remember my mother putting a stop to our fun!

“At the bottom of the stairs there was a door which opened into the sitting room in which was our best furniture. This room came into its own when we got a television! At the back of the sitting room was a door opening onto the platform but we never went through it and I remember a brown chenille curtain across it. Up the stairs was a bathroom and toilet (newly modernised for us I think,) three bedrooms and a long landing.

“Next to our house there was a station door opening into a waiting room and to the right of this was my father’s office. It contained a very high desk, a fireplace with a fire going in the winter and a cubby-hole for the tickets.

“Off the waiting room there was a door leading onto the platform. That and the other buildings off the platform were out of bounds to us. Outside our kitchen window there was a well. I used to dance a lot on the top. I shudder to think what would have happened if it had collapsed.

“There was always a lot going on. There was a lorry which used to call frequently for parcels from the trains and deliver them around the villages. Sometimes in the holidays my brother and I would be taken as a treat. We always stopped for sweets from the village shop en route!

“Once in the school holidays a cow escaped out of the nearby cattle dock and entered our house. We were upstairs, thankfully, at the time and I can remember my father and Alf, the porter, shouting up to us to stay where we were. There was a lot of cleaning up to do afterwards.

“Occasionally I remember a hunt meeting in front of our house. There seemed to be many ladies, dressed in black with hats and veils who all rode side saddle and huntsmen in red livery. The horses and ponies were unloaded from their boxes and off they went.

“They were happy days spent in the Station House. My father was a kind and conscientious man and the well-being of his staff was always important to him. He also had Walkeringham and Misterton to look after. After we left Beckingham we lived in other places around the north and south, with my father working his final years before retirement in a railway head office in London.

“It’s a long time ago now since we lived in the Station House , but I hope happiness and laughter will one day once again reverberate in its rooms.”

The previous owner bought the house in 1979 and lived there from 1984 until 2018, residing mainly on the upper floor while the original public rooms remained as they had been in 1959.

Many original features have been preserved, including the waiting room and the stationmaster's office, and there are old railway posters still visible dating from the time of closure.