History of the railway and the station building
The line running from Wansford to Stamford was built by the Stamford and Essendine Railway and opened in 1867. Wansford Road was the first station, located where the Peterborough-Leicester road crossed the line on a skew bridge.
The line was leased to the Great Northern Railway in 1894 and became part of the LNER at grouping in 1923. Never very profitable, by 1929 the line was losing almost £3,000 per year and the LNER announced closure to all traffic from June that year.
When the line closed, the station building was sold into private ownership and was used as a house until it was bought by National Highways as part of the A47 improvement between Sutton and the A1 at Wansford. The building appeared doomed to demolition as it sat right in the middle of the proposed new road.
Saving the building
In 2021, the Nene Valley Railway became aware that the building might be lost and made initial enquiries of National Highways about the possibility of saving the building for eventual rebuild at a site alongside the NVR line in Peterborough. Later, the Railworld Wildlife Haven became involved and a joint (NVR/RWH) proposal for relocation and rebuild was put to National Highways. Other proposals had also been tabled and an evaluation by Peterborough City Council and Historic England concluded that the NVR/RWH proposal would result in the best use of the building, with open public access in a railway context.
NVR and RWH agreed to set up a new charity to manage the project. This is “The Wansford Road CIO”, some of whose trustees are also NVR or RWH trustees. Working with terrific financial support from National Highways, the CIO has contracted to have the building carefully dismantled and removed for storage close to the rebuild site.
Re-erecting the building
Again with support from National Highways, the CIO has obtained planning permission from PCC to re-erect the building so that it can become the gateway to both NVR and RWH. Quotes for the rebuild have just been received and it is hoped that reconstruction can be complete in 2025, to coincide wit the completion of the A47 dualling and with the 200th anniversary of the first public railway in the UK,
