railroad.wikisort.org - Station

Monkwearmouth Railway Station is former station that served Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, England, from 1848 to 1967. It was built in 1848 to a design by Thomas Moore.[1] and was once the main railway station in the city.[2] The railway station closed in March 1967 and featured a restored booking office dating from the Edwardian period. The station was opened as a museum in 1973.[3]

Monkwearmouth Station Museum

Monkwearmouth Station Museum
Monkwearmouth Station Museum shown within Tyne and Wear grid reference NZ395577
Location	Sunderland, County Durham, England
Coordinates	54.913°N 1.385°W / 54.913; -1.385
Website	seeitdoitsunderland.co.uk/monkwearmouth-station-museum

The Tyne and Wear Metro and mainline trains still pass through the station without stopping, but the Metro calls at St. Peter's station a few hundred yards south of the old station, due to the platforms at Monkwearmouth being too narrow to serve as a Metro station.^{[citation needed]}

The former station is a Grade II* listed building.[4] As well as the ticket office, visitors could explore the Wagon Shed, Journeys Gallery and Children's Gallery.[5]

The museum was temporarily closed from August 2005 until 2007 to allow repairs and refurbishment to take place.[6]

The museum was closed on 23 May 2017 because the roof, footbridge and platforms were claimed to be in a very poor condition, despite a major two-year refurbishment programme in 2005–07. This last sentence is factually wrong.. I mean totally wrong. The footbridge was closed in 2000 or 2001 to comply with safety issues regarding the electrification of the railway for Tyne and Wear Metro services that became live in 2002.The Museum was closed because in 2013 Sunderland City Council took over direct management of the City's Museum Service that had been successfully managed by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums for nearly 40 years. From day one Sunderland City Council saw no value in the venue and ran it down. In 2017 it used the opportunity of an offer by the Fans Museum to run the site to close the Station Museum thus wasting significant time, effort and money invested by individuals, public bodies and private charities since the 2005/07 refurbishment and the building of the Wagon Shed and restoration of the wagons placed therein and restored in 2011. The station reopened as the Fans 'Museum', which houses a collection of football memorabilia from Sunderland and around the world and operates as a sports themed bar, shortly after the closure of the Station Museum.[7] The museum was closed in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic but reopened in August 2021.[8]

References

External links

• Monkwearmouth Station Museum - official site.

---