Davenport, is a busy station serving a suburban area just south of Stockport.
Davenport station, when opened in 1858, was surrounded by farmland. It was provided reluctantly by the railway company at the behest of Colonel Davenport of Bramhall Hall, who wished to develop the area with housing. Development was slow, and the early wealthy residents would only occasionally use the train, but by the 1880s the spread of today’s suburb was under way and the current booking office building was built.
By 1900, many of the houses nearby on Bramhall Lane had been transformed into shops to serve the growing population, and in later years several of the original large villas were replaced by more modest housing. By the 1960s it had hundreds of regular commuters, with around 150 people at a time regularly alighting from the busiest evening peak services, and it remains busy today with close to 300,000 passengers using the station each year, although some of the custom transferred to Woodsmoor station, opened in 1990. Davenport is also a destination, for students and staff of nearby Aquinas College and Hulme Hall Grammar School. Local residents enjoy easy access to the Peak District.
The station today is within the Cale Green Conservation Area, created in 2006, and has a small but active Friends Group you can learn more about the group and the station on their website here.
