How did soldiers get to Halifax Barracks during the Great War?
An ovegrown Ingrow East Railway Station after it's closure in the 1960s.
The majority of Keighley soldiers joined the Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment during the Great War and would have gone to the Duke of Wellington's Regimental barracks at Halifax, to be processed after initially attesting/enlisting at Keighley.
This is just a theory (for the moment) on the route that Keighley Soldiers took from Keighley to Halifax Barracks during the Great War. I'm making a few assumptions which I'll list at the bottom, but there must have been a reliable route for them to take or they'd have been getting lost all over the place.
I would assume the newly enlisted soldiers received a travel warrant which would cover them for rail, bus and tram travel and perhaps a short walk between various services.
Overview:
A schematic of the Keighley to Halifax Railway route.
From Keighley or Ingrow Station (renamed Ingrow East in 1951) to Pellon Station in Halifax. Then a tram from here up Pellon Lane and on Spring Hall Lane to Halifax Barracks.
Alternative option:
Keighley train to St. Pauls Station (terminus) then walk on Parkinson Lane and turn up Gibraltar Road to the barracks.
On the Great Northern Railway's Halifax, Thornton and Keighley Branch, the train would depart from Ingrow Station and pass through:
Lees Moor Tunnel - Cullingworth Station - over Cullingworth Viaduct - over Hewenden Viaduct - Wilsden Station - through three short tunnels at Doe Park to Denholme Station.
From Denholme Station they would pass through Denholme Tunnel - Well Heads Tunnel - Thornton Station - Thornton Viaduct to the triangular Queensbury Station.
Then through - Queensbury Tunnel - Holmfield Station and at Holmfield Junction it might take the Halifax High Level Branch and tunnel to Pellon Station and disembark here to get a tram at Pellon Lane to Spring Hall Lane and alight at the junction of Gibbet Street by the Halifax Barracks.
I have assumed a reasonable route, particularly from the Railway Station at Halifax to The Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment - Halifax Barracks, using probable public transport.
1913 Map from the Railway Clearing House depicting local rail lines. Kindly supplied by Sandra Gittins.
There is a question of whether this part of the Halifax High Level line was closed to foot passengers during the Great War period. If that was the case then they would probaby take the Halifax and Ovenden Branch to Halifax Railway Station and make their way up through the town by other means to the Halifax Barracks at the top end of Gibbet Street. It's quite a walk so I assume they'd take public transport for much of it.
You can follow the rail and public transport route on the marvellous National Library of Scotland's mapping service for 25 inch to the mile maps and this begins at Ingrow Station:
Rail route from Keighley to Halifax
Sources and Links:
Duke of Wellington's Regimental Association website
National Library of Scotland's Ordnance Survey mapping service (see link above)
Ingrow East Station
Queensbury Tunnel
Map kindly supplied by Sandra Gittins.
Ingrow East railway station photo from Keighley and District Local History Society archives.
