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Wolferton Station
his perfect rural railway station has actual crowns on it. The well-kept village of Wolferton is part of the Sandringham Royal Estate, and royal influence is everywhere. Wolferton’s best-known building is its fine Victorian/Tudor gothic railway station. There’s a station master’s house, signal box and waiting rooms built with local carrstone. It opened in 1863, a year after Edward, Prince of Wales, bought Sandringham Hall and the accompanying estate with his income from the Duchy of Cornwall. A couple of months later, the Prince and his new bride came to this country station to begin the Royal Family’s long association with west Norfolk. It was pure luck the couple’s new house was only 2¼ miles from the site of the Lynn & Hunstanton Railway's
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projected Wolferton railway station, and the directors were highly delighted. House parties and visitors to Sandringham were so numerous that the house was rebuilt, and the line became too busy for a single track. In 1898 another line was laid with a downside station, while the rest of the station was remodelled. Between 1884 and 1911, no less than 645 royal trains steamed in and out of Wolferton, but the mainstay of the line was produce from the Sandringham farms and the sparse rural population using the train. The buildings of the reconstruction familiar to us today cost £8,132, which was paid for by the Great Eastern Railway Company. The royal waiting rooms on the ‘down’ platform were fitted out with oak-panelling, couches and easy-chairs. The ‘up’ platform's buildings are similarly
impressive, and a small gas works lit the entire station. The building is still a delight, with royal touches all over – crowns surmount the lamps, the rooms are fit for a king, and the royal families of Europe passed through this station from Wilhelm II to Tsar Nicholas. Queen Victoria visited in 1871 when the Prince of Wales was gravely ill with typhoid and again in 1889. Three royal funeral processions left from Wolferton - Queen Alexandra in 1925, George V in 1936 and George VI, who died at Sandringham on 6 February 1952. Thousands stood by the line to pay their respects. During the following years, fewer passengers used the line and British Rail announced that the line would close. The last train ran on Saturday 3rd May from King's Lynn, and was packed with 250 passengers.
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