Was there ever a Sutton Bonington station?

[Shrewbly]

I have been researching my family tree and discovered that my Great Great Grandfather was stationmaster at various Midland Railway stations during the 1860s and 1870s.

The records seem to show that he was stationmaster at Sutton Bonington station in 1868, but as far as I can work out there was no station named Sutton Bonington station, only Hathern and Kegworth which were nearby.

So I assumed that he must have been stationmaster at Hathern or Kegworth, until I found some lists of stationmasters which suggested that it probably wasn't either of those stations in that year. So slightly baffled I'd thought I'd call upon the vast pool of knowledge available here to see whether anybody knows whether Sutton Bonington station actually existed, or whether any station changed its name from Sutton Bonington.

Any help much appreciated, Shrewbly.


For the sake of completeness I'll list the stations that I've identified that he worked at so far:

1864-66 Peterborough Crescent
1866 Hampton-in-Arden
1868 Sutton Bonington??
1870 Matlock Bridge
1871-72 Lancaster Green Ayre
1872-75 Tewkesbury
1879 Sutton Park

As you can see, he moved about a bit!

 

[The_Train]

Could be an interesting one to research. A quick Google search would suggest nothing in terms of any stations in the village, but there is a Station Road which seems to run over the railway and in most cases would suggest there having been a station in the past

 

[pdeaves]

Michael Quick's book shows no passenger station. Could it perhaps have been a goods station?

 

[DelW]

I think that the Station Road on Google maps connects to the site of Kegworth station.

Looking at 6" OS maps on the NLS website, there is no station shown between Hathern and Kegworth on the 1883, 1899, or 1919 revisions, nor do there seem to have been any sidings or loading points between the two.

https://maps.nls.uk/view/102352925 is the 1919 revision covering the area.

 

[d9009alycidon]

Had a check through the old map sites, none of the maps show any sign of a station in Sutton Bonnington, but definately at Kegworth. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...2.83515&lon=-1.25948&layers=171&right=BingHyb Which is where the Station Road refered to above crosses the railway. Kegworth Station was not in Kegworth, as was often the case, but the area to the west of the line was known as Sutton Fields, so this is possibly where the reference originates

 

[Shrewbly]

Thanks to everyone for looking; I think you've pointed me back to either Kegworth or Hathern. It must be one of these two that's being referred to.

I quite like the Sutton Fields idea, but I've just had a quick re-read through the history of the stations, and I've started wondering whether the 1868 date is the key.

Hathern opened in 1868, the year I have him at Sutton Bonington. He seems to have been something of a trouble-shooting stationmaster (if such a role existed in Victorian times), so perhaps he could have been responsible for the opening at Hathern, but then was only there for a brief period. I can just about make that fit with the dates.

Then - (possibly over-extending the guesswork here) - it's conceivable that there was some upset caused by naming the station after a more distant village (and in a different county), and that the station was unofficially referred to as Sutton Bonington, which was what ended up on the paperwork (or maybe it was originally going to be called Sutton Bonington before it opened).

I still can't entirely rule out Kegworth though, but there seems to be more of a problem with the dates with that one.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[krus_aragon]

I'm no authorative expert on things, but from looking at LNWR stations in North Wales in the 1870s, it was standard practice to move most station masters around every few years. My impression is that there was an element of being promoted to a larger station as your years of service increased.