Clapham station was opened by the North Western Railway (NWR) on 30 July 1849 on their line from Skipton to Ingleton and became the centre of railway rivalry for some ten years thereafter. It became a junction in 1850 when the link along the Wenning Valley from Bentham was opened on 1 June . This completed the route from Lancaster to Skipton. The station at Clapham is a small timber framed building in lathe and plaster, quite out of keeping with the normal stone structures of West Yorkshire.

The North Western Railway, often called the 'Little' North Western was an independent company eventually taken over by the Midland. It was based in Skipton and had ambitions to be part of an Anglo-Scottish route through Clapham, Ingleton and Lowgill. It was frustrated in this ambition by the expansion of the larger companies, the LNWR and the Midland.

The first section to open was between Skipton and Ingleton, on 31 July 1849. Due to economic recession, work on the planned Ingleton to Lowgill line was suspended, in order that attention could be focussed on the branch to Lancaster. Soon after, a line along the Lune valley from Lancaster Green Ayre to Wennington opened on 17 November 1849. This line was extended eastward to Bentham by 2 May 1850 and finally on 1 June to Clapham, at a junction with the already completed line from Skipton to Ingleton.

Upon completion all the way from Morecambe to Skipton , the Clapham to Ingleton section was closed, just ten months after opening, as the prospect of completing the line to Low Gill seemed remote.

From 1 June 1852, the NWR was worked by the Midland Railway (MR). Later, on 1 January 1859, it was leased to the MR, and in 1874 absorbed by the MR.

After considerable manoeuvring between rival companies, in 1857 it was the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway, worked by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), that was authorised to take over construction of the abandoned line northward from Ingleton to Lowgill. This line opened to passengers on 16 September 1861, but to the LNWR's own station at Ingleton. The Midland and LNWR stations were at opposite ends of a viaduct, and when the Little North Western's branch from Clapham to Ingleton was re-opened, passengers had to walk between them. However, by 1862 the LNWR trains ran through to the Midland station (see OTH entries for Ingleton Viaduct and Hellifield).

The trackbed of the 'Little' North Western line to Ingleton can clearly be seen at the west end of the station, going straight ahead while the present line curves away to the left. Here once was the original 'Clapham Junction'. Clapham is still open as a railway station, but unmanned. It is a Grade II* Listed Building.