The original Cherry Hinton station house can still be seen on the corner of High Street and Railway Street. The official name of the station house is the Gate House, as it formerly served as a house for the gatekeeper who manually opened and closed the level crossing gates for the railway line.
Cherry Hinton station opened on 9 October 1851 on the Newmarket & Chesterford Railway's extension from Six Mile Bottom to Cambridge. The Newmarket & Chesterford Railway was taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway on 30 March 1854, and just over a month later, Cherry Hinton station was closed on 1 May 1854! The good news for travellers and train spotters is that the line remains in use and trains pass through on the way to Dullingham and Newmarket stations etc.
In May 2013 Cambridgeshire County Council actually proposed to re-open Cherry Hinton station as part of an infrastructure plan to deal with projected population growth up to 2050. A previous proposal to reopen the station had been made in 1996 but 70% of residents who responded to a Council questionnaire were against it, and a new station was not considered viable at that time.
For more information on SideTracked Caches please visit www.SideTrackedSeries.co.uk