There's little sign today of Rowley railway station in its original location high up amid the stark, windswept beauty of Weardale.
Where trains once stopped, a few miles west of Consett on the old Stanhope and Tyne line, now you'll find a picnic site boasting rolling views across rural County Durham. And, apart from roaming flocks of sheep, the other living creatures you're most likely to see are cyclists riding eastward and taking advantage of the area's favourable downward gradient on this Waskerley Way section of the Coast to Coast route.
The station was opened in 1845 as Cold Rowley - initially under the auspices of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and later the North Eastern Railway - becoming plain old Rowley 13 years later.
