Newmarket and Chesterford Railway Company

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The Newmarket and Chesterford Railway Company was an early railway company that built the first rail connection to Newmarket.

The line was opened in 1848 (known as the "Newmarket Railway"). It branched off the London - Cambridge main line at Great Chesterford and ran about 15 miles north eastwards to a terminus in Newmarket, with intermediate stations at Bourne Bridge, Balsham Road and Six Mile Bottom.

Three years later, nine miles or so of the line, from Great Chesterford to Six Mile Bottom, was superseded by a more viable section linking Six Mile Bottom directly with Cambridge, and so the Great Chesterford - Six Mile Bottom section closed in 1851, one of the earliest closures in British railway history. The former Bourne Bridge station is believed to have been partly incorporated into a public house close to Pampisford station opened later on the now-closed Cambridge - Haverhill - Sudbury route). With the development of other rail lines the Newmarket terminus was replaced by the present through station in 1902; it was used as a goods station until 1967 and demolished in 1980. ^[1]

The Newmarket and Chesterford Railway Company was bought by the Eastern Counties Railways in the mid 1850s.