Bury St Edmunds railway station

The Ipswich and Bury Railway Company (I&BR) was formed to build a line from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds. The Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds Railway Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. xcvii) of 21 July 1845 authorised capital of £400,000 and it shared many shareholders and directors with the Eastern Union Railway (EUR), who were in the process of building their line from Colchester to Ipswich. The companies also shared the same head office location in Brook Street, Ipswich. The proposed line was 26.5 mi long, with intermediate stations at Bramford, Claydon, Needham, Stowmarket, Haughley Road, Elmswell and Thurston. The ground-breaking ceremony took place in Ipswich on 1 August 1845, where twelve local…

Designed by Sancton Wood, the station was inaugurated formally in November 1847, eleven months after the opening of the Eastern Union Railway's line from Ipswich. Wood was also the architect of Ipswich and Cambridge railway stations, as well as many stations in Ireland, including that of Heuston Station, Dublin. The most noteworthy feature of the station, which is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, is a pair of towers on either side of the tracks at the eastern end of the layout; these were linked originally by an overall roof, removed in 1893. It was built first as a terminus; the station had four tracks, although in practice only one platform was used before the line was…