Flint railway station

sign-out

button-theme-crimelink_to_french_translationFlint railway station, Market Square

The station building at Flint is perhaps the best surviving example in North Wales of the architecture of Francis Thompson. He was contracted by the Chester & Holyhead Railway to work alongside the renowned engineer Robert Stephenson. The pair had previously collaborated on the North Midland Railway, where Thompson’s works included the opulent Midland Hotel in Derby.

Flint station building, like its surviving fellows in Penmaenmawr and Bangor, embodies the Italaniate features which were fashionable in architecture of the early Victorian period. The station opened on 1 May 1848, the day services began on the Chester to Bangor line. There were four trains each day, per direction. Today there are at least two trains each hour, per direction, with direct journeys to London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Holyhead.

Old photo of LNWR staff member FlintIn 1894 the London & North Western Railway (which had taken over the C&HR) prosecuted three boys, aged nine, 11 and 13, for picking the lock of a saloon carriage parked at Flint station. The boys stole items belonging to the master of the Flint and Denbigh foxhounds and several other gentlemen who had gone with him to a hunt. Having sold the stolen goods, they “spent a merry time on wine, lemonade, tobacco, cigars and cigarettes”. The eldest boy, John Doyle, was sentenced to 12 “strokes with the birch rod”, and his younger accomplices to four and three.

The photo on the right shows a member of staff in LNWR uniform. It's one of the old photos which you can view in the station's main waiting room.

In 2007 Network Rail completed a £1m refurbishment of the station, including restoration of the fireplaces and overhaul of the roof. Flintshire County Council contributed half the funding, and afterwards began using the upper storey (previously vacant) as offices. The Railway Heritage Trust provided £190,000 for retention of the sash windows, door and window architraves, cast-iron pipes and gutters, and preservation of the station’s stone features.

Postcode: CH6 5PG    View Location Map

Wales Coastal Path Label Navigation anticlockwise buttonNavigation clockwise button