Embedded Files
Shippea Hill and Lakenheath stations are two of Britain’s loneliest national rail stations, being the least used station in their respective counties. Lying just eight and a half kilometres apart on the same railway line, they are a pair of unlikely survivors of a lost system of agricultural extraction that once acted as London's bread basket. Visiting these stations, which stand almost alone amongst an eerie landscape of flat fields puckered with drainage ditches and farmhouses, one asks themselves the question: Why have these stations endured for so long?
Shippea Hill and Lakenheath stations are two of Britain’s loneliest national rail stations, being the least used station in their respective counties. Lying just eight and a half kilometres apart on the same railway line, they are a pair of unlikely survivors of a lost system of agricultural extraction that once acted as London's bread basket. Visiting these stations, which stand almost alone amongst an eerie landscape of flat fields puckered with drainage ditches and farmhouses, one asks themselves the question: Why have these stations endured for so long?
railway network map of east anglia (greateranglia)
The Breckland Line
The Breckland Line
Ely station opening, Illustrated London News (1847)
Now known as the Breckland Line, the railway route between Ely and Norwich opened on the 8th of July 1845 (having been delayed by a week due to subsidence). The line was constructed by two different companies, with the western section as far as Brandon being constructed by the Eastern Counties Railway as an extension of their line from London to Bishops Stortford, and the eastern segment from Brandon to Norwich being constructed by the Norwich and Brandon Railway, which was quickly taken over the Norfolk Railway. The Norfolk Railway itself was then absorbed by the Eastern Counties Railway, which again was then merged into the Great Eastern Railway in an attempt to make the railway network financially stable. Services operated from Bishopsgate (and later Liverpool Street) in London through to Norwich via Cambridge and Ely, including express services multiple times a day.
In later years, the GER was merged in the London North Eastern Railway during the grouping process, in an attempt to keep the economically essential wider British rail network afloat. After WW2, when the railways were nationalised, British Rail chose to prioritise the more direct Great Eastern Railway, with direct rail services across the Breckland route declining into the late 1950s. The 1960s saw rationalisation sweep the network, and while many branch lines and station across the region felt the fall of the infamous Beeching Axe, the Breckland route saw just one station closure at Hethersett near Norwich, with cutbacks instead taking the form of service cuts, ticket office closures and the introduction of cheaper to operate DMUs on the local services, with loco-hauled services remaining on longer distance runs to Liverpool Street and across into the Midlands and North.
During privatisation, services became more regular, with an hourly Norwich - Liverpool Lime Street service running semi-fast, and an hourly Norwich - Cambridge (later Stansted Airport) local service. The line has many stations with limited services - Shippea Hill & Lakenheath, whose services are so limited they can't really be used by anyone, and Harling Road, Eccles Road and Spooner Row, which receive peak-only services that primarily serve school kids travelling into Norwich. In 2009, this line was resignalled, and the manual crossings replaced by CCTV monitored crossings, resulting in the closure of all the signal and crossing boxes along the line, and retiring the archaic telegraph-based communication system that was still in place at the time of the upgrade.
The now closed signal and level crossing box at Shippea Hill
Shippea Hill Station
Shippea Hill Station
Shippea Hill in its Heyday (1) Pocket Book UK
(7) National Library of Scotland
Opened with the line in 1845, the station was initially named Mildenhall Drove, and then Mildenhall Road, despite Mildenhall being a massive 11 kilometres away. This was a common thing on early railways, which you could almost describe as a scam, designed to trick people into thinking that the railway served the town they wanted to travel to even when it didn’t. However, with the opening of a railway actually serving Mildenhall in 1885, Mildenhall Road was renamed Burnt Fen the same year. This name reflects the local area around the station, where traditionally the land was dried out for farming by setting it on fire. As part of the 1652 South Level of the fens, the marshy fen was drained by engineers led by Cornelius Vermuyden, which resulted in peat-rich farmland all year round as a result of constant drainage by windmills, and later steam engine and diesel generator powered pumps. The result of of the drained peat is that over time, it contracts, causing it to become an unstable surface for construction and requiring a lot of expensive maintenance of road and rail infrastructure across it. Burnt Fen station never served or intended to serve any kind of population centre; instead, its purpose was to act as a railhead for the movement of farm produce from the vast expanse of flat farmland of the fens to the bustling markets of an ever-expanding London. One side effect of this was the name of the station changing to Shippea Hill. Produce was shipped in boxes stamped with the name of the station, and farmers could fetch a higher price for potatoes stamped Shippea Hill, because it reflected an area of non-peat farmland raised slightly above sea level with lighter coloured soil.
(8) Rail Map online
Reflecting its agricultural significance, the station had many sidings and connected many agricultural tramways. These were mostly 2ft gauge and horse-drawn, extending into the fenland farms in order to transport produce up to the station.
An additional branch constructed in the 1860s, ran from near the crossing of the Little Ouse to a brickworks site at Shrub Hill. This Line was shortlived and closed in the 1880, as a result of the global Long Depression, which also spelled the end for the era of "railwaymania" that had led to stations and branches like Shippea Hill existing in the first place.
At this time the station itself had a goods yard, with a large building on the up platform, and several buildings on the down platform. It looked at this time very similar to Lakenheath station.
There was also a branch line serving a Sedge Fen and its Jam factory. Owned by Chiver's and Sons, a company who originally made jam in Histon, near Cambridge, they expanded up here to take advantage of the proximity to their raw materials, and the finished goods were loaded onto direct daily 'Fruit expresses' to transport them to Covent Garden market in London. The station also saw a regular 7am 'milk run' service call from Norwich to Liverpool Street, which transported perishable goods and important packages.
(7) National Library of Scotland
(6) Museum of Cambridge
All that remains of the original station buildings now is the signal box
During the Second World War and after into the cold war era, this station saw official use as the railhead for servicemen heading to the increasingly large RAF + USAF Mildenhall air base. This remained one of the only sources of traffic the station saw into the new dawn of road haulage.
As with its sister station Lakenheath, the goods yard closed in 1966, following decades of declining usage. Closing the branch lines and tramways in the process, local industry had moved to cheaper and more efficient road haulage to transport their produce to markets. Staffing was withdrawn and the station buildings demolished, with the exception of the signal box. The station survived the chop however, as with Lakenheath, due to legislation that passed to make it more difficult for British Rail to close stations. This made it more financially viable for BR to simply cut the service to a bare and unusable minimum, in effect closure, but without having to go through the expensive formal closure process. Another reason the station remained open was the signal box, which also operated the manual crossing. Shippea Hill was so stupidly remote that the staff running the box would still need train services to drop them off and pick them up to get to and from work, so keeping the station open to the public too made little difference to BR.
Services at the station today consist of one daily weekday service at 0726 towards Norwich, and a pair of services on Saturdays which in theory would allow someone to travel to Norwich and back again. There is no Sunday service. Despite its extreme lack of regular passengers, this station has decent facilities for a rural halt. There are benches on the Up platform and a large shelter with a bench on the down platform. Recent upgrades to the station have delivered a digital departure board by the entrance to the down platform, along with CCTV and WiFi. The signal box has survived demolition despite its closure in 2009 and the level crossing being upgraded to CCTV operation in 2012. The building has been victim to the fens, contracting ground, with massive subsidence to the building resulting in it being extended at the rear to shore it up. The disused parts of the platform (located at the London end) also have been affected by serious subsidence, and indeed the line here has seen many summertime timetable alterations as a result of the peat shrinkage during heatwave years affecting the tracks stability.
Recent usage at usage has fluctuated weirdly over time, with 37 in 2004, 942 in 2009, just 12 in 2015, 432 by 2018 and then in the 24/25 period it received just 76 passengers. My ticket here, from August 2026, will contribute towards the 2026/27 figures for both stations - it is only possible to make this trip once per week, and involves travelling the wrong way, changing at Brandon, and travelling back. A fantastic memento for a pointless trip.
Shippea Hill's population around the station can be estimated to be around 50 people, and yet, with 7 trains per week calling, this station still receives a more frequent service than Houston, Texas, USA, with a population of over 5 million people, served by just 6 trains per week.
Lakenheath Station
Lakenheath Station
Lakenheath's platform Post Box
the Eastern Counties railway station building at Lakenheath
This station is within 5 miles of what now are 3 medium sized villages - Hockwold cum Wilton, Feltwell and of course Lakenheath, though when the station opened in 1845, all of these settlements were much smaller, and the stations initial name of 'The Hiss' (named for a nearby farm) reflected this isolated character. The station was quickly renamed after the largest of the three villages.
(7) National Library of Scotland
Even in it's heyday, this was a small, rural station. The station buildings are fairly standard Eastern Counties Railways designs, not dissimilar to those at the other small stations on the line to London Liverpool Street. The main station building located on the down platform is flanked by the one surviving waiting room, and although it is no longer publicly accessible you can see inside through the windows where a toilet stall has survived (including toilet paper!). On the up platform, the site of the former goods yard is visible, though the goods tracks, crossovers and waiting room on this side are long since demolished. The goods siding here served the same kind local agricultural traffic as Shippea Hill, with the biggest customer being a chicory root factory. Interlocked signals arrived on the ECR in the 1880s, and a signal box is constructed on the other side of the level crossing to facilitate this.
During the First World War, the advent of air combat led to the construction of a number of aerodromes around the country, including at Feltwell, north of the station. In order to carry materials to and from the construction site, the Royal Flying Corps constructed a 2ft gauge light tramway along the side of Feltwell Road and Station Road, with horse-drawn wagons connecting with goods trains using the mainline goods yard. After construction was complete, this tiny, temporary line was torn up and no trace of it survives.
The fens were the perfect place to construct large air bases, and during the Second World War, the RAF and USAF expanded and constructed many airfields in the region, including Mildenhall and Lakenheath air bases. Once again, the station served an important role, with materials and personnel regularly using the station.
Following the war, the continued progression of road haulage alongside the policy decisions of governments to prioritise road over rail led to the closure of Lakenheath's goods yard in 1966. In 1967, further rationalisation by British Rail saw the station lose its staffing and become a 'halt' station. Mooted for closure, the station survived the chop as a result of legislation making it cheaper for BR to run a single weekday 'parliamentary' service than to go through the closure process. In 2007, train operating company National Express East Anglia partnered with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to improve access to the adjacent Lakenheath Fen nature reserve. This was achieved by replacing the single daily weekday service with 1 train each way on Saturdays and a regular, 2-hourly service on Sundays (7 trains in total). This was successful in raising usage, especially compared with similarly isolated Shippea Hill.
As a result of the 2009 resignalling and level crossing automation, the box became redundant, and by 2012 it is demolished, replaced with a small metal shed housing the crossing electronics.
(8) Rail Map online - route of temporary tramway
As of the 2024/2025 usage figure, Lakenheath received just 920 passengers across the year long period, which is nearly double its 2023/24 usage figure of 430. The station has shelters and benches on both platforms, a cute post box, (with more frequent collections than train services!) and received a minor upgrade in recent years, with the addition of CCTV, Digital departure boards on each platform and free WiFi. Unlike its desolate partner 8km away, Lakenheath station feels like it may have potential. The proximity of three villages around the station, all of which have seen housebuilding projects expand their population in recent years, in my opinion could make the restoration of some weekday services alongside a car-park viable, which would help reduce congestion on the busy roads in the surrounding area. Sadly, however, there are no plans or intentions for such changes currently from either local government or railway companies.
references:
references:
photographs own work unless stated otherwise
photographs own work unless stated otherwise
My friends made a video visiting these two stations, including the journey between them via Brandon, featuring me.
Watch here:
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse