Beckhole railway station

The first part of the Whitby and Pickering Railway had extended to Tunnel Inn (Grosmont) and Beck Hole by 1835. This was a special arrangement to carry passengers from Whitby.[1] A permanent station opened in 1836 as Beckholes,[2][3] although initially it was not advertised in literature as a destination, merely the point at which horses were detached so that the carriage could be sent up the incline.[2] It later received station status, though in the early days of railway building, tickets were bought generally from local inns, rather than from the station itself.[4] By 1847, when the York and North Midland Railway had taken over the line, steam working was used throughout to Whitby, supplanting horse-power all along the line. This necessitated building a shed at Beckhole, for the use of steam engines, which, once they had been lowered down the incline, generally stayed operating between Whitby and Beckhole.[5]

The single track engine shed had a water tank, and was located to the immediate north of what were two railway cottages designed by George Townsend Andrews.[6] These two cottages were later combined into one dwelling as Incline Cottage, a grade II listed building.[7]

A deviation of the line was built in 1865 to avoid the use of a rope-hauled inclined plane; a short section of the replaced line from Grosmont to Beck Hole remained open as the Beck Hole branch.[8] This was used as a freight-only line delivering coal to the hamlet of Beck Hole, and forwarding out stone from Lease Rigg, and for a time, ironstone from the surrounding quarries and mines.[9] Passenger services ceased on 1 July 1865.[10]

From 1908 to 1914 the branch was used for summer passenger traffic from Whitby, after which the line only carried freight traffic. Freight traffic ended in 1951.[8]