St. Mark's Station, Lincoln

Image: © Jo and Steve Turner Taken: 28 Oct 1990

Grade II Listed former station. The first railway in the County from Nottingham to Lincoln was opened by the Midland Railway on 3rd August 1846 along with Lincoln Midland Station. The architect may have been J A Davies; a surviving drawing of the facade of the station is signed I.A. Davies. J.A.Davies was an architect employed by the railway engineer Frederick Swanwick and was later in practice in Chesterfield as Davies and Tew. The building contractor was John Burton under the charge of the line engineer W H Barlow. It had 4 tracks and 2 platforms originally about 90m long and later extended, covered by double roof resting on side walls and supported by iron columns between rails. The station passed into the ownership of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923, and later came under the control of British Railways (BR) in 1948. It was while under BR management that the original overall station roof was removed in April 1957. BR re-named it as St. Mark's Station on 25th Sept 1950. It became the City's main station in 1965. Originally a terminus the line was extended through the station crossing the High Street only two years after opening to connect with the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (later Great Central Railway) just to the east of their station. Prior to closure of the Lincoln to Grantham line during the Beeching Axe, London services had used Lincoln Central station. In 1980 British Rail applied for Listed Buildings Consent to demolish St Mark's railway station to enable redevelopment to take place, but this request was refused in 1981. The last train ran from here 11th May 1985, all rail traffic being then handled by Central Station. Becoming derelict, in July 1995 (evaluation) and June 1997 (watching brief) an archaeological team moved onto the site to excavate the area locating remains of St Edward the Martyr’s church and a Carmelite friary. The south platform and wall were demolished in 1995 but in 1996-8 the north platform and station buildings were restored and incorporated, with extensions, into a retail development by Simons of Lincoln. The station buildings were occupied by Argos (until October 2020), and Lakeland Plastics (until 2019).

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0