Manchester Mayfield is a former railway station in Manchester, England. It is located on the south side of Fairfield Street, next to Manchester Piccadilly station. Opened in 1910, Mayfield was constructed as four-platform relief station adjacent to Piccadilly to alleviate overcrowding. In 1960, the station was closed to passengers and in 1986 it was permanently closed to all services.
After years of abandonment and many proposed development schemes, the station roof was dismantled in February 2013. The site was used for Manchester International Festival in July 2013. Planning permission was granted for conversion of the station to an entertainment venue in November 2013.
Manchester Mayfield railway station and the surrounding 6.2-acre (25,000 m2) site is the property of London and Continental Railways, the residual government-owned corporation and former partner in Eurostar.
Use as a passenger station
Opened on 8 August 1910 by the London and North Western Railway, Manchester Mayfield was built alongside Manchester London Road station (later Piccadilly) to handle the increased number of trains and passengers following the opening of the Styal Line in 1909. The LNWR had considered constructing a new platform at London Road between the MSJAR’s Platforms 1 and 2, which were renumbered 1 and 3 in anticipation, but this was abandoned in favour of the construction of Mayfield; the platforms nevertheless remained renumbered. Four platforms were provided and passengers could reach London Road via a high-level footbridge. Mayfield suffered the effects of bombing during World War II, when it was hit by a parachute mine on 22 December 1940.
Mayfield was a relief station mainly used by extra trains and suburban services to the south of Manchester. For example, in the 1957-58 London Midland Region timetable there were trains to Cheadle Hulme, Buxton, Alderley Edge, Chelford and Stockport on weekdays. In the London Midland timetable of September 1951, the Pines Express from Bournemouth West is shown as arriving at Mayfield at 4.30pm (16.30) on Mondays to Fridays. On Saturdays this train used Piccadilly station, then known as London Road. In the 1957-8 timetable, the Pines Express still arrived at Mayfield on Mondays to Fridays, now at the time of 4.45pm (16.45).
It came into its own for a brief period during the electrification and modernisation of what was to become Piccadilly Station in the late 1950s, when many services were diverted to it. It was closed to passengers on 28 August 1960.
Use as a goods station
The site was converted into a parcels depot which opened on 6 July 1970. Royal Mail constructed a sorting office on the opposite side of the main line and connected it to Mayfield with an overhead conveyor bridge which crossed the throat of Piccadilly Station. The depot closed in 1986 following the decision by Parcelforce, Royal Mail’s parcels division, to abandon rail transport in favour of road haulage. The building has remained disused ever since, with the tracks into Mayfield removed in 1989 as part of the remodelling of the Piccadilly Station layout. The sorting office was briefly reused as an indoor karting track, but has now been rebuilt as the Square One development, prestige offices used by Network Rail; the parcel conveyor bridge was removed in 2003.
Disuse
The site is currently owned by BRB Residuary. The interior of the station was used in Prime Suspect as a drug dealer’s haunt. It was also used as a double for Sheffield railway station in The Last Train. The roadside building was gutted by a fire in 2005.