In this guest blog post, we hear from volunteer Matthew Smith, who regularly travels from Sheffield to Grassmoor for volunteer days, and explores the history of railway stations along his journey.

Every week, dozens of staff and volunteers congregate to undertake conservation and rewilding work on sites around the Don Catchment Rivers Trust. Many of us can be unaware of the amazing history of our surroundings when doing so.

Up until as recently as the 1990s and 2000s, many of the sites which the DCRT work on would have previously been the home to an array of industries or railways. One of the most intriguing former uses for some of the sites comes in the form of former railway tracks, stations and other infrastructure. Even sites you wouldn’t think of such as the one at Grassmoor in Chesterfield have previously been the home to long-gone branch lines.

Having always been intrigued by local history, I have taken an interest in the history of some of these sites and intend to explore the history behind them in a series of blog posts tracing the former Grand Central Railway route through the boundary of the Don Catchment River Trust. We start at the canal basin in Sheffield, home of the Victoria Quays and the Dorothy Pax bar. Anyone departing from Sheffield to the sites in Chesterfield by public transport will most probably be familiar with the current Sheffield station on Sheaf Street, just opposite Sheffield Hallam University. Those newish to the city or unfamiliar with its history will probably be unaware that up until 1960s Sheffield had another, smaller station, Sheffield Victoria, located on the site of the car park and modern extension of the present-day Crown Plaza Victoria Hotel. Up until 1963 you would also have been able to get a train directly from here to the station on the Grassmoor Country Park site which the DCRT work on (more on that in another post).

Sheffield Victoria station opened in 1851, closing to passengers in 1970 when all services to Manchester via the Woodhead tunnel ceased. The site is currently occupied by an extension to the former station hotel (still open) and a freight line to serve the steelworks at Stocksbridge. You can spot this infrastructure when walking along the five weirs walk and the canal towpath towards Meadowhall, the walk being rather pleasant, especially in summer. Not all sites still have the rail infrastructure still in place like this one, and have been almost completely taken over by nature, as has the site as Grassmoor, which will be the subject of the next blog post.