Full steam ahead on station revamp

A visitor centre is to be created inside historic buildings at a former Wolverhampton train station. The derelict Tettenhall Railway Station, which stands behind Henwood Road, is being brought back to life with a £600,000 redevelopment.

The former station building will become home to a new visitor hub for the popular Smestow Valley Nature Reserve, while the old booking office will be converted for use by the park rangers as a mess room and store. The work was due to form part of the Black Country Urban Park project.

Last month the Urban Park scheme lost out on £50million of lottery funding when it failed to win a TV vote show, but the work at the station is now being made possible thanks to money from the European Regional Development Fund. The makeover is expected to begin in the next few weeks and take five months to complete, ready for visitors in the summer.

Councillor John Reynolds, leisure and culture chief, said today: “This is a very exciting development and is something people who come to the nature reserve have asked us for. We are looking forward to being able to welcome visitors to the centre and to allow school children to use the resources that will be displayed there.”

John Pugh, Wolverhampton City Council’s head of parks and contracts, added: “The centre will tell visitors all about the history of the building and of the railway line, and about the sort of flora and fauna they can see in the area today.”

Tettenhall station was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1925, when passenger services were first introduced along the route. But usage was never very high and it closed seven years later, though goods trains continued to rumble past the buildings until the line was completely shut in the mid-1960s.

Mr Pugh said it was hoped the former goods shed on the station complex could later be used as complimentary facilities for visitors. 

The 150-acre Smestow Valley Nature Reserve runs from Oxley to Wightwick along the disused Wolverhampton to Kingswinford to Stourbridge railway line.