The site of the current Leeds station is the location of a sharp bend in the river and for centuries a complex series of waterways known as goits were created by by damming the river and diverting water away to the various nearby mills. A few yards downstream, the Waterloo Ford was a treacherous and unreliable river crossing.
A basic railway station was first built on this site in 1846 by the Leeds and Bradford Railway company, just above the ford, on stone arches spanning the river. It was known as Wellington Station and provided a convenient terminus for passengers using the new line to Bradford. This station was soon made more permanent with the addition of the North Midland Railway line to Derby.
In 1866, work began on an even more ambitious project, a joint venture between the London North Western and North Eastern railways that would build an even bigger station right next door to Wellington Station. This was known as Leeds New Station, and it featured a mile-long brick-lined viaduct creating a vital rail link connecting east and west, opening in 1869. The new station swallowed up a lot of the area formerly known as School Close, home to many small factories and warehouses, and even an open-air public swimming baths!
The whole section crossing the river is an impressive 160 metres wide – its width about four times greater than its span.
The vast, foreboding space underneath the stations quickly adopted the local name The Dark Arches and was used for the storage of all manner of goods. In the early hours of the 13th of January 1892 a serious fire broke out where highly inflammable raw materials for the nearby soap factory accidentally ignited causing widespread destruction and the partial collapse of the railway viaduct. The cost of the damage was huge – the equivalent of many millions of pounds in today’s money. Despite the almost complete destruction of the west end of the station, disruption was kept to a minimum with the restoration of most train services within a couple of weeks.
Some evidence of that fire damage and the subsequent repair can still be seen underneath the arches today, particularly in the area housing the NCP car park.
Leeds New Station eventually combined with the adjacent Wellington Station in 1938 to form the present Leeds City Station. The legacy of this merger is the two distinct station concourses that are at different levels – Wellington Station being built on slightly lower arches. Today’s station platforms still sit on those imposing Victorian piers channelling the river beneath.
Bridges within Bridges
Beneath the arches, an access road – Dark Neville Street – connects Neville Street with the Granary Wharf complex over a small iron bridge. This bridge is now very old and has been closed to traffic in recent years. Today Dark Neville Street is not so dark with the recent installation of colourful LED lights highlighting the craftsmanship of the vaulted arches. It is a marvel of engineering that this and the rest of the entire mile-long viaduct took just 3 years to build completely from scratch.
In 2016 the new south entrance to Leeds Station was opened. A unique structure built onto the side of the viaduct, with its striking golden roof, it spans the river on an extension of the original Victorian piers. This provides pedestrian access from both sides, giving lift and escalator access to the station platforms. A new pedestrian bridge was built at a significantly higher level than the existing iron bridge to accommodate projected future flood levels.
