Ayot was a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

serving

Ayot St Peter Ayot St Peter is a village and civil parish in the Welwyn Hatfield district of Hertfordshire, England, about two miles north-west of Welwyn Garden City. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 166. At the 2011 Census the population ...

near

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It was on the branch line to Dunstable.

History

Opened by the Great Northern Railway, it became part of the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

during the

Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...

of 1923. The station then passed on to

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948 but was closed by

that year when the station was destroyed by fire and never rebuil

The site today

The trackbed is now part of a local

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

called

Ayot Greenway The Ayot Greenway is a rail trail which extends from Ayot St Peter, just west of Welwyn Garden City and the A1(M) Motorway to Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire. Part of National Cycle Network Route 57, it runs for three miles along a former br ...

References

* *

External links

Ayot station on navigable O. S. map

Ayot station
on disused-stations.org.uk Disused railway stations in Hertfordshire Former Great Northern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1877 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1948 {{EastEngland-railstation-stub