Chester station is celebrating its 175th birthday with several events that pay tribute to its chief engineer Thomas Brassey. The main events take place on Tuesday 1 August, the exact anniversary of its opening, which took place exactly one year after its foundation stone was laid by Brassey.
The station, which is currently undergoing improvements, was built at the end of the ‘railway mania' among British people in the 1840s, and provides an important link between north Wales and north-west England.
The station was designed by Francis Thompson and built by a workforce of around two thousands workers, It is made of Staffordshire blue brick and pale grey Storeton sandstone with slate roofs in the Italianate style popular at the time. Its two-storey façade is three hundred and five metres long with a central section of fifteen bays and lateral projecting pavilions with five bays and two towers each.
Thomas Brassey was born just outside Chester in 1805, and was one of the lead engineers on the Chester to Holyhead and the Shrewsbury and Chester lines.
He had trained under the renowned Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford, and went on to build railways in many locations around the world, including the Grand Trunk railway in Canada, which runs for 540 miles and includes the Victoria Bridge, the world's largest at the time. He also constructed dock systems, locomotive factories, sewer systems, amazing bridges and huge viaducts.
Brassey was known as a humble man, and refused honours in Britain although he did receive honours in other countries.
He was also thought of as a ‘model employer', employing up to eighty thousand workers on his construction projects, paying better-than-average wages and providing facilities including a library at his huge Canada works in Birkenhead, three decades before the first public library opened.
By the late 1840s, Brassey could claim credit for having built about one-third of the railway in Britain, and three-quarters of the railway in France. He also took on railway building projects in countries including Spain, Australia, Norway and the Crimea.
The Thomas Brassey Society promotes his achievements and is currently fundraising for a statue at Chester station.
This year also sees the 175th anniversary of the completion of lines from Chester to Shrewsbury and Chester to Holyhead.
The celebrations have been organised by the Community Rail Partnerships for the area – 3 Counties Connected, Mid Cheshire and North Cheshire – with support from rail operators Transport for Wales, which manages Chester station, and Avanti West Coast.
Record producer and lifelong railway enthusiast Pete Waterman is supporting the events, including a talk led by the Thomas Brassey society about the history of the station and Brassey's many achievements. This will take place twice on 1 August from, at 11am and 6pm, in the Queen Hotel opposite the station.
Eight days later, on Wednesday 9 August, Chirk station in Wrexham will host a tea dance and Victorian costume day on 9 August in the town hall.
Melanie Lawton, TfW's Community Rail Strategy Lead, said thar it was brilliant to bring everyone together to mark the railway history of the city: “Chester station is a remarkable building in its own right and in railway terms it connects so many communities in England and Wales.
“The fact it has been in operation for 175 years is wonderful and a testament to its designer Thomas Brassey and all those workers and engineers who built it.
“Sharing our history with new generations is vital and we hope these events will help inspire others to follow in his footsteps as we work with communities to better connect them to their railways.”
Stephen Langtree MBE, Chair of the Thomas Brassey Society, said: “The 1st of August 2023 will be a memorable day for Chester as it will celebrate the opening of Chester Station, built by Thomas Brassey who had, by this stage, built railways all over the world.
“Working with architect, Francis Thompson, and engineer Robert Stephenson, together they constructed a magnificent, Italian style building which had, at the time, the longest platforms in the country.”
