Legbourne Road was a
railway station on the
East Lincolnshire Railway which served the village of
Legbourne
Legbourne is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, about south-east of the town of Louth.
History
The Priory of Legbourne was founded by Robert Fitz Gilbert of Tathwell about 1150, apparently to rec ...
in
Lincolnshire between 1848 and 1964. The station was closed to passengers in 1953, and withdrawal of goods facilities took place in 1964. The line through the station closed in 1970. The station once housed a museum containing railway memorabilia; this closed in 1998 and the building is once again a private residence.
History
The station was opened on 3 September 1848 as ''Legbourne'' after the village of
Legbourne
Legbourne is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, about south-east of the town of Louth.
History
The Priory of Legbourne was founded by Robert Fitz Gilbert of Tathwell about 1150, apparently to rec ...
which lies to the east on what is now the
A157 road, and renamed in May 1880 in an acknowledgement that there was some distance between the village and the station. It was constructed by
Peto
Peto may refer to:
People
* Peto (surname), includes a list of people with the surname Peto
* Kawu Peto Dukku (1958–2010), Nigerian politician, Senator for the Gombe North constituency of Gombe State, Nigeria
Other uses
* PETO, a German party
* ...
and
Betts Betts is an English Patronymic surname, deriving from the medieval personal name Bett, a short form of Bartholomew, Beatrice, or Elizabeth. It is also the americanized spelling of German Betz. The surname may refer to
* Alejandro Jacobo Betts (1947 ...
civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...
ing
contractors who, in January 1848, had taken over the contract to construct the section of the
East Lincolnshire Railway between and from John Waring and Sons. This section was the last to be completed in September 1848, at an agreed cost of £123,000 (). The line passed over two
level crossings before it reached Legbourne village: the first over the A157 and the second over Mill Lane. The station was situated to the south of the first crossing which, despite its distance from the village, was possibly chosen because it was the more important of the two roads crossed.
As with other stations on the line, Legbourne was provided with staggered platforms situated either side of the crossing; a
signal box
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
lay on the northern side of the crossing and as well as controlling the gates, also regulated access to the two
sidings on the side adjacent to the crossing, which were the station's only goods facilities. The station did not handle livestock.
The stationmaster's house is similar in style to that found at other stations on the line and was sited adjacent to the crossing on the down side.
The July 1922 timetable saw four up and down weekday services, plus one Sunday service each way, call at Legbourne Road. The station was closed to passengers on 7 December 1953, one of the first such closures on the East Lincolnshire Line, but goods facilities (downgraded to an unstaffed public siding
) remained for a further ten-and-a-half years until 15 June 1964.
Present day
The platforms were removed before closure and the signal box was demolished in December 1970. The main station building was later restored by Mike Legge as a museum housing a collection of
railwayana. The museum acquired a signal box which had controlled the crossing of the
Alford and Sutton Tramway by the
Mablethorpe Loop Line at a point on the edge of
Sutton-on-Sea. The box had survived the closure of both lines and had remained in the middle of a field until the 1980s. A large
Great Northern Great Northern may refer to:
Transport
* One of a number of railways; see Great Northern Railway (disambiguation).
* Great Northern Railway (U.S.), a defunct American transcontinental railroad and major predecessor of the BNSF Railway.
* Great ...
-style building was constructed near the main station building; this is not original, but was built for the museum. The museum closed in 1998 upon the retirement of the owners and the contents auctioned, but the station remains in good condition as a private residence with the signal box visible from the road.
References
Sources
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External links
Legbourne Road station on navigable O. S. map
{{coord, 53.34158, 0.03935, type:railwaystation_region:GB_source:enwiki-npemap.org.uk, display=title
Disused railway stations in Lincolnshire
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1953
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1848
Former Great Northern Railway stations