The bicentenary of the world famous Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) is almost upon us. Nine months of celebrations will take place from March through to November 2025. I travelled the route of this journey two months ago in anticipation of the festivities. You can read about this here. But the S&DR had a rival, the Clarence Railway, running only a few miles to the north, which had managed to steal most of the S&DR’s precious coal cargo soon after opening in 1833. The Clarence Railway, and its important place in Durham and Teesside history, is almost forgotten now. Most of it survives in fragmented form, but hardly anybody knows it is there.
History of the Clarence Railway
I intend to write a future article with a more detailed history of the railway, but here’s a potted version for now: The earliest history of the Clarence Railway pre-dates the opening of the S&DR. Promoter Christopher Tennant unsuccessfully petitioned parliament for a railway in 1823 and 1824, to be named after the Duke of Clarence, later to become King William IV. The Clarence Railway Act finally received royal assent in 1828, and had been completed by 1833. Both the S&DR and the Clarence ran from the Durham coalfields to the river Tees, but the latter had a shorter, more direct and cheaper route. Both railways can be seen on the map below:
Journey of discovery
I’ve been visiting the route of the railway over the past few weeks. This is a description of those visits, following the railway from the former Simpasture Junction at Newton Aycliffe, down to the tidal river Tees next to the Transporter Bridge in Port Clarence. Most of the Clarence is still a working railway, with a mixture of passenger and freight lines.
Newton Aycliffe
Newton Aycliffe is a modern station, dating back only to 1978. Immediately east of the station, Simpasture Junction marked the starting point of the Clarence Railway, which headed due east. The former route of the S&DR, which still exists as a live passenger railway, diverges south towards Darlington. The track bed of the Clarence has been converted into a nature walk.
A classic railway walk
I’d never visited this route before, but it’s a beautiful walk. This section of the line closed in 1963, and nature has had plenty of time to recover.
From 1941 to 1945, the Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) operated immediately south of here, employing 17,000 munitions workers at its peak. There were freight connections to both the Clarence and the S&DR. Two passenger stations, Simpasture and Demon’s Bridge, operated to transport the ROF workers, but the location of these former stations is difficult to identify due to wartime information restrictions. The ROF is now Newton Aycliffe Industrial Estate. The post-war new town of Newton Aycliffe was developed immediately north of the railway. A new road, St Cuthberts Way, was built to connect the town and the industrial estate, passing beneath the railway here. There are some modern sculptures built into the foundations of the bridge. They are worth a look:
End of the Line
The Simpasture Nature Walk comes to an abrupt halt at the A167 Great North Road, where the underbridge has been bricked up
It’s a shame that this stretch of the railway wasn’t preserved for use as a footpath or cycleway. I scrambled up to the A167, crossed the road and headed towards Ricknall Lane and the Hammer and Pincers pub. A picnic area in the pub grounds occupies the track bed of the railway. A minor road branches off Ricknall Lane here. It’s a cul-de-sac which peters out into a farm tack. Just along this road, the bridge that carried the Clarence Railway over the A1(M) Durham Motorway has been converted into a road bridge. The East Coast Main Line runs parallel to our former railway here.
Preston-le-Skerne
The road leads to the hamlet of Preston-le-Skerne, where two railway artefacts can be found – a platelayers hut and an underbridge containing a farm track.
The signage for the public footpaths becomes ambiguous beyond here, so I headed back to Ricknall Lane. The next mile or so of the track bed is in private hands now. Half of it has been converted into a gallop for Rebecca Menzies stables. I followed the minor road south of the Clarence Railway via Great Stainton and Old Stillington village, and returned to the route of the railway at Stillington. It’s only fair to warn anybody thinking of following this route that these are narrow, winding roads without pavements. It’s a dangerous walk, not to everyone’s taste.
A working railway
Just west of Stillington, the Clarence becomes a working railway, and remains so until its terminus at Port Clarence. A branch was built to serve coal mines in the Quarrington area in 1834, the year after the line opened. This line survives as a freight line connecting Teesside with the East Coast Main Line at Ferryhill via the former Stillington Junction. Stillington station was served by trains between Stockton and Ferryhill, and closed in 1952. There’s not much left of the station apart from a passenger underpass.
Another ghost station
I made my way to the next former passenger station at Redmarshall, also known as Carlton. As with many rural stations in Britain, it was remote from both of the villages it purported to serve, and it never thrived. It closed along with Stillington in 1952, and there’s no trace of the station. The Clarence Railway was primarily a freight railway. No passenger trains ever served the entire route, and the stations along it only ever saw sporadic service.
Norton
Quite a long walk from Redmarshall to my next encounter with the railway, the site of Norton-on-Tees station, the second one so named. The first station, opened along with the Clarence Railway in 1833, was about 800 metres west of its successor, and was yet another station inconveniently located for its would-be passengers. The station was moved to its second location in 1877. The Durham Coast line trails in from from Stockton near the site of the first Norton station, and the former Clarence Railway becomes a passenger line for a short distance. Norton’s most distinctive feature is its tall signal box, much loved by rail photographers. But the station itself closed in 1960 and nothing remains of it.
Billingham station
In 1841, eight years after the Clarence Railway was completed, the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway built their branch to Victoria Dock in Hartlepool, branching off from the railway about a mile east of Norton. Billingham station was opened at the branch junction, about a mile north of the small village it served. Billingham station remained in use until 1966, when it was inexplicably relocated to a site further east on the Durham Coast line, in the middle of a remote industrial estate. The remains of the station can be found on Station Road, opposite its namesake hotel. The Station Hotel opened soon after the station, but the current building was constructed in the 20th Century.
A lonely railway
And so, beyond the former Billingham railway station, the tracks diverge. The Durham Coast line heads towards Hartlepool, and remains busy both for passenger and freight lines. But the Clarence Railway becomes freight-only again as it heads towards its terminus at Port Clarence. The railway once served the mighty ICI Billingham industrial complex, delivering 2 million tonnes of coal per year alone. In 2024, it sees a sparse service of one or two trains per week to the Navigator oil storage facility at Seal Sands. ICI opened a passenger station for their workers at Belasis Lane, next to the landmark red metal bridge on Belasis Avenue, which operated from 1928 to 1964. The concrete ramp leading down from the bridge to the platforms is extant, but it is overgrown, and my camera couldn’t do justice to it. However, the atmospheric signal box on the other side of the bridge is always worth a snap.
Haverton Hill
Haverton Hill began life in 1923 as a model village built by the Furness Shipping Company. By the 1960s it had become one of the most polluted towns in Britain, suffering from its location downwind of ICI Billingham, in particular the sulphuric acid and chalk fertilizer plants, which frequently generated a notorious white haze. The air pollution was so dangerous that a decision was made to demolish all housing in the town, and the demolition was complete by the early 1970s. The railway station was built on a bridge over Haverton Hill Road. The station closed in 1954, but the bridge remains, and the wide abutments tell a story of the former structures – waiting rooms and platforms on both sides of the running lines.
Port Clarence
My journey ended at Port Clarence. Prior to the opening of the railway, this was an uninhabited islet on the river Tees known as Samphire Batts. Numerous coal staithes were built immediately after the coming of the railway, followed by several salt works to exploit the natural deposits beneath the Tees estuary. Bell Brothers iron works opened in 1852, soon employing 6,000 people. The first passenger station at Port Clarence opened in 1834 and closed in 1882. There are no photographic records of it. A second station was built closer to the growing town, but passenger traffic slumped after Bell Brothers closed in 1930, and the station closed in 1939. There is no trace of this second station, but the stationmaster’s house is extant. It’s just across from the famous Transporter Bridge, built in 1911.
Visiting the railway in 2024
I’ve drawn a map of the current state of the Clarence Railway here:
The start of the railway, the section through Newton Aycliffe, is an enjoyable walk. Similarly, the last few miles of the route between Belasis Lane and Port Clarence can be traced by following parallel roads. A fascinating, if not scenic, walk. In between these two stretches, a visit to the railway artefacts is more of a challenge.
