{"id":427170,"date":"2026-05-13T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/railuk.com\/?p=193295"},"modified":"2026-05-13T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:00:00","slug":"remote-station-in-yorkshire-is-the-perfect-family-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=427170","title":{"rendered":"Remote station in Yorkshire is \u2018the perfect family home\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A man who lives and volunteers at a remote station in North Yorkshire is encouraging people to visit the area and enjoy the beautiful scenery.<\/p>\n

Tim Hill and his wife Elly left the busy market town of Bourne in Lincolnshire and moved into the \u201cperfect family home\u201d in Battersby station with their three young children in 2007.<\/p>\n

The station is on the picturesque Esk Valley Railway. Northern services on this route run between Middlesbrough and the popular seaside resort of Whitby, calling at a number of stations in the North York Moors National Park along the way.<\/p>\n

Battersby was a busy through station in the 19th century, used by freight trains transporting ironstone. But the decline of mining in the area lead to one of the lines being closed in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Trains now stop at the station 12 times a day and drivers exchange tokens from a machine on the platform before reversing out, to ensure there are no other services on the single-line track.<\/p>\n

Tim and Elly decided to buy the old station building, which has been converted into a four-bedroom bungalow, as soon as they saw it because they were so impressed by the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to live in the countryside and have some more traffic-free space for the kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to view the house and even before we’d stepped inside it, we just knew it was the right one for us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a peaceful and beautiful place with ever-changing views of the hills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been the perfect, safe family home for the kids to grow up in. We\u2019re surrounded by fields and footpaths, so they had the run of the place, and would often be playing outside with friends for hours on end.<\/p>\n

“We also made regular use of the train for trips to other places on the North York Moors and the beach at Whitby.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years after moving in, Tim and a few other locals decided to form the Friends of Battersby Station adoption group, who volunteer to look after the station throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first moved here in 2007 it wasn\u2019t just the house that looked a bit sad and unloved \u2013 the station itself did too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do something about it so started out picking up litter and clearing back overgrown vegetation. We now have quite a few volunteers who help look after the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe bought new benches, picnic tables and installed planters which we tend to year-round. The watering of plants in summer takes quite some effort. We\u2019re also working to help support the local wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve installed bat and bird boxes on the mature pine trees, sown wildflower seeds, and we even have a bug hotel on the platform.”<\/p>\n

There are station adoption groups at each of the 17 stations on the Esk Valley Railway.<\/p>\n

They work with the Esk Valley Community Railway Partnership to make the stations more pleasant and welcoming places for passengers to visit.<\/p>\n

Image credit: Northern<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A man who lives and volunteers at a remote station in North Yorkshire is encouraging people to visit the area and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Tim Hill and his wife Elly left the busy market town of Bourne in Lincolnshire and moved into the \u201cperfect family home\u201d in Battersby station with their three young children [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8221,47,16092,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-rail-news","category-stations","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=427170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427171,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427170\/revisions\/427171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=427170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=427170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=427170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}