Celebrating 175 years of first-class service

With its bright red benches and fabulous flower displays, Downham Market station is a pleasure to travel through – and even better to spend some time at. Commuters can’t help smiling as they enter the cheerful ticket office, catch sight of the friendly welcome signs and smell the sweet floral fragrance wafting from the platform’s wooden planters - though few travellers are aware of the history of this stunning Norfolk stop.

Built for the Great Eastern Railway after plans were approved for a line connecting King’s Lynn to Ely and London, the station was opened on October 27th, 1846 when passenger services began on the Lynn to Denver section of the line – and the Grade II listed main building has experienced little change since then. Built of local carrstone with pale brick dressings, Jacobean-style gables and diagonally-set chimney shafts, it’s a striking and distinctive element of the station. 

Downham Market’s charming green and yellow signal box was Grade II listed in 2013. Built in 1881 its notched bargeboards and window sashes without horizontal glazing bars indicate that it’s of the GER type 2 design. The box has survived largely intact, with its original 1881 Saxby and Farmer rocker frame and almost all the original decoration to the operating floor. Still staffed 24/7 and fully working with old fashioned levers, it stands today as proudly as it did 140 years ago. 

Though its buildings have experienced little change, the station looks very different to the way it did almost two centuries ago. The original platforms were much shorter than today, barely longer than the main building itself, although platform 2 (towards Lynn) was extended in 1911. The majority of the space in the station complex was taken up by numerous goods sidings situated at both approaches and in the Goods Yard and Office, now the site of the car park. There was also a turntable in the northeast yard which was used by horse-drawn wagons to transport freight offloaded from trains, and until the 1960s platform 1 was dominated by a large square water tower. 

As well as its impressive buildings the station at Downham Market has had some moments in the spotlight. In April 1979 it was visited by Sir John Mills for the filming of an episode of Anglia TV’s ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ which dramatized many of Roald Dahl’s short stories. In addition, in 2011 journalist and broadcaster Michael Portillo featured Downham Market in an episode of his popular documentary series ‘Great British Railway Journeys’, describing it as “a charming station” and “a very special stop.”

And the station has become even more “charming” since, with a £64,000 heritage makeover in 2017 giving it the bright colours we see today. The station shines in its patriotic red, white and blue paintwork which was chosen to commemorate Network Southeast - the former British Rail division that operated across southeast England 30 years previously. 

Andy Savage of the Railway Heritage Trust helped plan and fund the redecoration.

“There were proposals to re-use the colour scheme from the King’s Lynn station, which had a 1950s inspired makeover in 2014,” he says, “but we opposed that because there was no historic precedent to it. After much local discussion, the compromise everyone agreed to was the former Network Southeast livery. I have to say I like the effect, and there’s no doubt that Great Northern went the extra mile in doing a really good job.”

Soon after the refurbishment in February 2018, the Platform 1 café opened at the station, offering a large selection of food and drinks in addition to free WiFi, a large-screen television and comfortable seating. It makes waiting for your train a real pleasure, and it’s a fabulous welcome for everyone who arrives.