Railway historian Tim Dunn has named Dartmouth station in Devon as one of the least interesting buildings he explored while researching a television series about Britain's railway architecture. Dunn, also a television presenter, said the station's interior lacked historic features, despite its unusual backstory.
No train ever stopped there
Dartmouth station is unusual because no train has ever actually stopped there. The historic building sits on the opposite side of the River Dart from Kingswear railway station and was originally used for ticketing purposes.
During a discussion about the series, Dunn was asked whether any of the historic buildings he had researched turned out to be less exciting than expected. After looking through his list of locations, he singled out Dartmouth.
Interior disappoints
He said: "I didn't really like, to be honest, Dartmouth." Explaining why, he added: "If you go inside the station building, there's not much of any historic inside. It's nice outside, nothing interesting inside."
Despite his disappointment with the interior, Dunn acknowledged that the station itself has an unusual railway history. He explained that Dartmouth was technically a station despite being on the wrong side of the river from the railway line.
Personal connection
Dunn also revealed a personal connection to the location, explaining that his father had worked for the British Rail Property Board and had been involved in selling the branch line to William McAlpine's group. He joked that visiting the station was partly a chance to have a dig at his father.
However, Dunn made clear that his criticism was directed at the building's interior rather than its place in railway history. He said: "I'd probably say it's least least interesting for me." He added that it was still "an interesting story of the railway and why it's there".
The historian also spoke about his experiences filming at London's King's Cross station, which he described as one of his three favourite London stations. During one episode, he was tasked with helping clean the tracks and buffers as part of a look at maintaining historic railway infrastructure. But after spending more than an hour cleaning, he admitted he had already had enough of the job.
For Dartmouth, though, it wasn't the work involved that disappointed him. It was simply that the historic station building had far less to see inside than he had hoped.
