Portsoy [1st]

Location type

Station

Name and dates

Portsoy [1st] (1859-1884)

Note: text in square brackets is added for clarity and was not part of the location's name.

Opened on the Banff, Portsoy and Strathisla Railway.

Description

This former terminus is one of the most remarkable station survivors in Scotland. It has a station with a wooden trainshed dating from 1859. This has an attractive herring-bone pattern end from the panels which formed the screen, below this the entry has been blocked to create a shed. The station trainshed remains intact with an utterly out of keeping modern extension on the west side.

The station was approached from the south. The goods yard was laid out to the west and passenger station to the east. The passenger platform was the east face of an island, the northern part of which was covered by the trainshed. The west face was a loading bank in the goods yard. The ticket office is on the west side of the trainshed.

There was a double ended single road locomotive shed to the south of the station on the west side of the line and approached from both the goods yard and the south. This had a turntable at the south end.

Sidestepping the station on the east side was a track running down to Portsoy Harbour on a gentle incline finishing by the quayside. ('Gentle' - a locomotive could visit the harbour but only with one wagon at a time.) There was a siding on its west side just short of the harbour at Low Street. It was cut back to this siding.

The station closed in 1884 when replaced by Portsoy [2nd] on the line west to Buckie [GNSR] and, ultimately, Elgin East. It was rebuilt as a goods depot and coal yard. The platform and loading bank were rebuilt and approach lines relaid with hardly any curves. The engine shed closed.

The railway closed in 1968.

Tags

Station terminus trainshed

External links

Canmore site record
NLS Collection OS map of 1892-1914
NLS Collection OS map of 1944-67
NLS Map
NLS Map