Potton Station and the Bedford and Cambridge Railway

The station about 1910 [Z50/91/78]

Five years after Captain Peel's Railway opened it was absorbed by the eighth railway to be built in Bedfordshire - the Bedford & Cambridge Railway. Such a railway had been mooted as long ago as 1845 but it was not until 1858 that Charles Liddell of Liddell and Gordon surveyed a viable route. The building of the railway was contracted to Joseph Firbank and it opened on 4th July 1862 and was under the aegis of the London and North Western Railway Company.

The former station March 2007

The railway line had ten stations in Bedfordshire running from Bedford, Saint Mary to Blunham (Willington station opened to passengers in 1903) to Sandy thence along the old Sandy and Potton Railway track to Potton and then on into Cambridgeshire with stations at Gamlingay, the Old North Road, Lord's Bridge and Cambridge. The railway was a victim of Beeching's cuts and closed on 1st January 1968.

The rear of the former station March 2007

Potton station was listed by the former Department of Environment in February 1981 as Grade II, of special interest. The station is built from yellow gault brick with ornamental dressings in red and blue bricks and had slate roofs. The platform canopy was of five bays of iron and glass on the west side. Decorations included the letters BC. The main passenger building survives, relatively unaltered, as 48 Station Road, a private house.