The hidden secrets of Darlington's Bank Top station

The main entrance is beneath the impressive clocktower at the top of Victoria Road, but to get to the trains from there, you have to manually drag luggage through the tunnel under the northbound track, up the stairs and onto the platform.

So it is the goods entrance off Parkgate that most people use, as it is far more convenient to drive with your car taking the strain up the ramp between the tracks.

The station, which is about to have the biggest refit in its 140-year history, was built in 1885 by the North Eastern Railway’s engineer-in-chief, Thomas Harrison, who had a liking for island stations – stations that have their waiting rooms and ticket offices on a central island with the up and down tracks flowing past on either side.

The cab stand at the main entrance to Darlington Bank Top station at the top of Victoria Road on February 9, 1968. Picture courtesy of John Askwith

At Bank Top, to allow passengers to reach the central island, Harrison had two tunnels dug beneath the northbound track for foot passengers and two shafts sunk for hydraulic lifts at the Victoria Road entrance for those travellers who couldn’t manage the stairs.

Then the railway directors realised they would have to employ two lift operators to work around the clock, an expense that was considered unnecessary when station general manager Henry Tennant predicted most passengers would prefer to use the goods ramp.

So the lifts were scrapped, even before the station opened on July 2, 1887.

Inside the cab stand at Darlington Bank Top station on September 24, 2006. Picture courtesy of John Askwith

“The main entrance from Victoria Road was through what was known as the cab stand or cab shelter,” says John Askwith, following our archive selection of pictures of the station in Memories 607. “Originally there were two subways which linked the cab stand to the platforms.

“Only one is in use by the public today, and the other is now a service tunnel, blocked off at the platform end.”

That’s fascinating: so somewhere at Bank Top is one forgotten tunnel and two lost lift shafts.

And there’s more...

The cab shelter at the Victoria Road main entrance to Bank Top station in February 1937. The air raid shelter was underneath the four windows to the right of the entrance

David Race, in Darlington, writes: “To the right of the Victoria Road entrance, behind the low wall, there were two air raid shelters which were there until the late 1950s and possibly into the 1960s.

“The shelters consisted of two separate mounds of earth which covered a corrugated metal shelter.

“The entrance to the shelters faced the station wall in front of the windows on your 1937 picture. Inside, there were several wooden bunk beds and at the Park Lane end of the shelter, there was a wooden ladder leading to an escape hatch in the roof, presumably in case the entrance was blocked by falling masonry during an air raid.

“I don't remember these shelters ever being locked because as kids we often entered them. Were they for railway staff I wonder?”

An artist's impression of what the Victoria Road entrance to Bank Top station will look like after the £100m revamp

Today, the building on the right of the 1937 picture has been demolished and a car park occupies the space in front of the windows where the air raid shelters once stood, as the area awaits the £100m revamp. Will any remains of the shelters be found?

WH Smith on platform one of Darlington's Bank Top station on August 28, 1963. Picture courtesy of John Askwith

READ MORE: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO DARLINGTON'S UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE BRIDGE?

ON A similar theme, at the back end of last year two people separately approached us to ask whether we knew of an air raid shelter or Royal Observer Corps nuclear defence bunker at Scotch Corner. Apparently it was inside the roundabout on its western side.

Can anyone tell us anything about it (or any other Royal Observer Corps bunkers that still exist)?