Knole station

British Columbia. Railway point
Former name of Rider
53.4833 N 120.5333 W GoogleGeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1912 (GTP map)
Not currently an official name.
112 miles west of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway station built in 1914. Renamed Rider in 1916.

Knole of Sevenoaks in Kent, England, was once the palace of the archbishops of Canterbury.

The name of this station was probably selected from the list of names that Josiah Wedgewood submitted to Grand Trunk Railway president Charles Melville Hays. William Pittman Hinton, general passenger agent of the Grand Trunk, had asked Wedgewood (of Wedgewood China fame) to submit a list of names suitable for the stations on the new railway line; consequently many station names on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway have a connection to England.

At present there are no highways in the country. However, there are a few good trails. These run from Henningville up the McLennan Valley and over the Albreda summit to the Canoe and North Thompson Rivers: from Knole (Mile 112) up the Goat River and thence to Barkerville, a distance of eighty miles: and from Bear River to Fort George. The Forest Branch of the Department of Lands are building a few trails up a number of streams, notably the Rau Shuswap and Beaver Rivers.

— Walker, South Fork of Fraser River, 1914

In 1916 English author Henry Rider Haggard [1856–1925] travelled through the area on the GTPR. He was so impressed with the scenery and wrote very glowingly about it that the mountain above Crescent Spur was named Mount Rider and the glacier on the mountain was called Haggard Glacier.

The rail stop at Knole is said to have been renamed Rider in his honour, but the name Rider was already in use by 1911.

References:

  • Walker, James Alexander [1887–1959]. “South fork of Fraser River, Dore River to Clearwater River. December 15, 1913.” Report of the Minister of Lands, (1914). Google Books
  • Olson, Raymond W. Ghost Towns on the East Line. Prince George, B.C.: Raymond W. Olson, 2017

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