The best (and worst) train stations in Britain have been named by the Telegraph

The UK’s railway stations are an eclectic bunch. One day, you may board the train from a grotty, crumbling platform, another you’ll find yourself stepping off at one the the country’s most magnificent examples of architectural prowess. 

Separating the grim from the grand, the Telegraph has just revealed its pick of the best and worst railway stations in the UK. The list has been compiled by the paper’s travel writer Rob Crossan, who says that he has visited around 500 of the country’s 2,600 stations. 

Let’s start with the good stuff, shall we? Crossan waxed lyrical about the ‘monumentally beautiful’ Wemyss Bay station at the ferry port of the Isle of Bute. He said: ‘Built in 1903, it was designed to get passengers and their luggage off the train and onto the vessel without exposing them to an excess of the hoolie winds that blow in from the Firth. The result is a masterpiece of glass and ironwork, meshing multiple architectural styles, that feels both forensically thought out and yet effortlessly graceful.’

The list of Britain’s finest stations also included Cromford, which is ‘perhaps the UK’s quintessential rural train station’, the Grade II-listed art-deco Leamington Spa and Hebden Bridge, which has ‘resisted modernity with exquisite resilience’. 

Over in the capital city, London Marylebone, ‘the city’s most civilised mainline station’ was named one of country’s best while the relentlessly chaotic London Euston with its infamous ‘Euston Rush’ was declared one of the worst. 

Chester railway station got a beating, too. Crossan said: ‘If St Pancras is the wedding cake of 19th-century train station architecture, then Chester station is a two-day-old Gregg’s pasty that’s been pecked at by pigeons.’ He added that, thanks to its ‘featureless, flat station frontage’ and distance from Chester’s historic town centre, it’s ‘a strong shout for the dullest mid-sized station in England’. 

He also had nothing nice to say about Warrington Bank Quay, which he reckons looks out over a ‘hellish industrial view’, or Middlesborough station, which is apparently ‘horribly bereft of facilities’ and next to ‘some of the tackiest nightclubs the north of England can offer’. 

Britain’s best railway stations, according to the Telegraph

• Hebden Bridge
• London Marylebone
• Cromford
• Wemyss Bay
• Pitlochry
• Leamington Spa

Britain’s worst railway stations, according to the Telegraph

• London Euston 
• Warrington Bank Key 
• Middlesborough
• Chester 
• Sunderland
• Darlington 

Read more about what the Telegraph had to say about all those stations here.

ICYMI: When will every major UK rail operator be nationalised? Full list of routes and dates with a newly public owned service this week. 

Plus: Check out the UK’s 12 most beautiful train stations.

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