My name is Howard Benson. I'm a former pupil of Rothwell Grammar School and part time reporter for the Rothwell Advertiser. I was born at Wakefield in June 1955 and brought up by my parents Frank and Betty Benson, initially at Quarry Hill in Oulton and then at Claremont View. Indeed they both still live in the area with my brother Clive. My grandfather Ernest Benson worked at Water Haigh pit where my father also worked as a wages clerk until the pit closed and he was transferred to Lofthouse, before ending his career at Allerton Bywater. My grandmother Nellie Benson worked at one time as a cleaning lady in Oulton. My mother’s father Bill Alderson also worked at Rothwell Colliery where he lost part of a finger. He was a trombone player with the Rothwell Temperance Band, and died in 2006, aged 99.

Before I left the area for university and the bright lights of London  I misspent part of my youth hanging around Woodlesford station.

 

I can remember the first steam engine I spotted there was a Jubilee class called British Honduras which was on a stopping train from Sheffield.

 

When I grew bored of simple trainspotting I moved on to help the porters by calling out the station name, and later I helped deliver parcels throughout the Rothwell district. I can also remember pulling off the signals for express passenger trains, something that would now be deeply frowned upon by the railway authorities.

I started this project to record the history of Woodlesford and its station a couple of years ago and what I find fascinating are the snippets of information which I keep discovering which take me along many different paths of local history.

If you go to Woodlesford station now there’s little trace of the activity that once went on there. The station building was quickly pulled down after it became an unstaffed halt in 1970, and the Midland Railway designed signalbox has long since disappeared.

 

There's lots of historical interest surrounding Woodlesford and its little station. How can you help? Well I’d like to hear from you if you have memories or memorablia of the station, the pit, the quarry, or the brewery. Do you have old photos, tickets, or posters that have a connection with the station? Maybe your research into family history has thrown up a railway connection? Please get in touch at bensoh10@WoodlesfordStation.co.uk

Thanks so far go to Alan L Bailey who wrote of his time at Woodlesford in Backtrack magazine, Derek Rayner and Geoff Brunton who’ve sent me photographs of the station, and former Rothwell policeman Jamie Guest who once made his own model of Woodlesford station.