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Goathland Railway Station

This station (originally known as Goathland Mill) is on the deviation line opened by the North Eastern Railway in 1865 to avoid the cable-worked Beck Hole Incline, which was part of the original 1836 Whitby and Pickering Railway route.

The station buildings were to the design of the NER's architect Thomas Prosser and were very similar to those being built concurrently (by the same contractor, Thomas Nelson) on the Castleton to Grosmont section of the Esk Valley Line at Danby, Lealholm, Glaisdale and Egton. The collection of buildings is very little altered since they were built – the last recorded change (apart from NYMR restoration) was in 1908.

Goathland railway station is on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. The railway is run by a charitable trust with some paid staff but is mostly operated by volunteers, running nearly all the year including Christmas. It carries more than 250,000 passengers a year and is the second-longest preserved line in Britain. It links Grosmont in the north with Pickering in the south, along the route of the Whitby - Pickering line built by George Stephenson in 1835 and upgraded in 1865. From 2007 some trains on the railway were timetabled to run to Whitby and in March 2014 work began in Whitby station to replace a platform and allow more North Yorkshire Moors Railway services to be timetabled Whitby - Pickering.

Goathland Village

Goathland is a village and parish in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, it is in the North York Moors national park due north of Pickering, off the A169 to Whitby. It has a station on the steam-operated North Yorkshire Moors Railway line.

Goathland village is 500 feet above sea level and has a history extending from Viking times. The name Goathland is probably a corruption of 'good land'. Alternatively, it may come from 'Goda's land', Goda being an Old English personal name. In 1109 King Henry I granted land to Osmund the Priest and the brethren of the hermitage of Goathland, then called Godelandia, for the soul of his mother Queen Matilda, who had died in 1083. This is recorded in a charter held at Whitby Abbey. The village was a spa town in the 19th century. There are many hotels and guest houses in the village, the largest, the Mallyan Spout Hotel, is named after a nearby waterfall.

Much of the surrounding land is owned by the *Duchy of Lancaster. The Duchy's tenants have a common right extending for hundreds of years to graze their black faced sheep on the village green and surrounding moorland.


*The Duchy of Lancaster is, since 1399, the private estate of the British sovereign as Duke of Lancaster. The principal purpose of the estate is to provide a source of independent income to the Sovereign.
Present holder: Elizabeth II
First holder: Henry of Grosmont
Heir apparent: Charles, Prince of Wales
Created by: Edward III
Creation date: 6 March 1351