MORETON PINKNEY SMJ

[Si Donal]

I moved to Moreton Pinkney in 1986. My parents house was on the Canons Ashby Road at the bottom of which was the old bridge that crossed the trackbed of the old SMJ line. I took it upon myself to read about it and I once had a glorious two weeks of access to the Jordan treatise on the subject.

I used to walk the dog along the line in both directions. On the rear of the platform was an old Box Van (I am 90% sure it was a midland type) and it was in a sad state. The platforms were still there too as well a a few bits of fencing still extant. The base of the station was clearly visible.

In the Towcester direction was a mile marker cast in concrete (? LMS) and also a few gradient markers. At the crossing used by the local hunt was the base of a wooden cottage and a raised platform, at solebar height wheich was for the transhipment of milk from farmcarts to railway wagons.

Our neighbours were a Mrs Della and a Mr Les Pratt who had lived in the village all their married life (Della was born there) and knowing my interest in railways and local history told of many stories of the local station.

During WW2 the bridge was apparently hit by an Army Universal Carrier (a Bren Gun Carrier) causing brickwork to fall onto the rails and delaying the first train of the day. When I looked at the bridge, I saw a section of mortar in the centre of the parapet which tallied with the story. The bridge was an odd mix of red brick, blue brick and ironstone, probably repaired over the years on many occasions. Indeed it was demolished ( as was teh GCR bridge on the other side of the village) to allow heavy Heygates Flour lorries to use the B4525.

The crossing house, the base of which I alluded to earlier was apparently used only for the local hunt. I feel that this is dubious although the brick base was there and there was also no other habitation in that area. There is a story of the hounds crossing the line and then following the scent down the line towards Towcester. How the situation was rectified was not clear to me, probably it was a local yarn.

The signalman was for some time a Mr Les Hawtin, known to Mr & Mrs Pratt. After the war, Mr Pratt was de-mobbed from the RA and worked up at Culworth Junction Signal Box on the GCR line and from his lofty position on the embankment could see the "little" locomotives heading up to woodford with 1 coach trains or lengthy freights.

There was a weekly cattle market in the village, held at the rear of the Red Lion pub (known as Englands Rose in recent years). The textured brick floor of the market is still theer and the cattle and sheep once sold, were walked doen the road ( about 3/4 of a mile) to a field adjacent to the station whereupon a special train would be brought in to take the livestock away.

I also used to walk the other direction to Woodford Halse also. I was always confused by all the lines converging and it is only now that I fully understand it.

Mr & Mrs Pratt had a very faded photograph of the station in edwardian times with many passengers in their Sunday best, awaiting a train the the Towcester Direction. How I wished that I had asked for that photograph but I was too polite. I guess it is lost to time now.

In honour of the kindness of Mr and Mrs Pratt, have often hankered to build an n gauge model of the station perhaps as part of a larger model railway. locomotives have always been a problem but there is now a manufacturer of the typical locomotives of the 1930s. If there is any research and progress, I will put it here.

Thank you for the site which I have visited often and is a mine of information.

Si

[Dick Bodily]

Si

Lots of interesting stuff that I didn't know about in your discussion.

Living at Blakesley until ' 68, I knew various people from Moreton but not your neighbours, the Pratts. Mr Hawtin (known as Lou) who you mentioned used to also be a part time entertainer. I believe he played the accordian. There must have been quite a tradition of being signalbox men in Moreton as there was another one by the name of Ashby as well. I well remember Mr Pratt's box and watching from a bridge near Eydon, cross country express trains taking the Banbury line braking hard as they approached the junction. For many years after closure a broken leaning over signal post stood on the high banking at the junction.

My gran, born in 1883, lived at Fox Farm, Moreton until the GCR Culworth station was built nearby and they lost part of their land by compulsory purchase. Her family then moved to Blakesley. She claimed that she worked as a teenager for Sir Henry Dryden at Canons Ashby House but I haven't been able to confirm that this was true. She certainly knew a lot of stories about the exploits of that great eccentric local character. My granddad, born in 1868, who was later a brickie /ganger employed by the SMJ, used to go drinking with the navvies working building the GCR at their camp near Moreton. He never actually worked on the GCR construction but being a bit of a rough diamond enjoyed the company of the navvies.

Morton (sic) Pinkney station which was always misspelt by the LMS and BR closed as a goods station in 1956 before most of the others and was in a rundown state before the line finally closed, its passing loop was removed. Woodford West Junction - Blakesley became a very long block section long before the final closure and as a result trains were often delayed at Blakesley waiting for another train to clear this quite steeply graded section. I too had heard the story about the hounds so it was probably true and also about a similar instance on the WCML near Roade when unfortunately several dogs were mowed down and the railway company had to pay damages!

If you are considering a Morton Pinkney layout you can find more useful pictures than in other publications, including one showing the mentioned van and a map from 1900, in 'Branch Lines around Towcester' Mitchell & Smith ( Middleton Press). Lou Hawtin is to be seen on the steps of his signalbox in one of the pictures. Riley & Simpson's and Jordan's respective SMJR books also have some info about Morton Pinkney station too.

Dick

[Andy Thompson]

Si
would you mind if I cut n pasted this to the bottom of the Morton page?
|Andy

[Si Donal]

Andy, not at all, I am pleased that my, albeit vicarious, memories can be of use.

Andy Thompson said:

Si
would you mind if I cut n pasted this to the bottom of the Morton page?
|Andy

[Si Donal]

Dick,

Local lore has it that the brick kiln & clay pit (now an odd shaped house with a matching annex) on the right hand side of the Moreton to Banbury Road (1/4 mile from the site of the GCR station) was the site of the contractors navvy camp in the Moreton area. It is said that this produced bricks for the railway. I am sceptical about this owing to the GCR's love of blue engineering bricks that require special clays.

I am not suprised to learn that the station goods facilities closed early on, the line's east - west direction mean that the only reasonable traffic flow for goods to and from the village would be to Towcester. Towcester, Brackley and Banbury are the local centres of population that might attract the people of Moreton. Stratford is certainly not. Local buses and carters would be providing competition to the railway by the 1930s. Also the alignment of the goods siding meant that it was easiest to work from trains travelling from Towcester towards Stratford. Coal was delivered from the GCR's Culworth Goods Yard to the village almost from it's opening to make the most of supplies from the Derbyshire/Sheffield area using the direct line.

Post war employment being scare for de-mobbers, Mr Pratt was employed to write details of passing trains into the signal box register, apparently he could not progress owing to deafness caused by his wartime service with the Royal Artillery. He was a good cricketer and played for Culworth (where he had been born). I am fairly sure that Lou Hawtin was not a resident of Moreton but was a relief for SMJ Signal Boxes. I heard a reference to him in Byfield too. I also heard that even in the 40's Morton Box was "switched out" at times giving a long section from Woodford to Blakesley even before the passing loop was singled.

From my memory, the crossing keepers lodge was on the old Banbury Lane (a green lane). There would have been no running water so the life must have been pretty primitive there. On many rural railways, milk churns were used to deliver potable water from passing trains. I have seen no record for the cottage and I do wonder whether the local hunt or a landowner provided the keeper at the occupation crossing from their staff during the hunt season only.

I also recall Mrs Pratt saying that rabbits were dispatched from the station in the guards van in tall boxes They were hung by their legs. Apparently local rabbits were a bit special ( and a christmas favourite) and there are still plenty in the area.

When I visit my parents next I will walk the dog and see if I can re-discover some of the features that I used to pore over as a teenager, and produce some pictures for this site.

Si

[Dick Bodily]

Si

I think I know the house you are talking about, is it the more or less opposite Pewitt Farm? The owner in the 60s and 70s used to make or sell lawn rollers. One of the stories about my grandfather and his brother was that they were walking back from Banbury market which would have involved passing that very house. They had bought a new chamber pot and they went wherever their friends the navvies were drinking either in a temporary shack or possibly Moreton pub, got it filled with ale and passed it around for all the rough old women who were accompanying the navvies to drink from. Moreton must have been like the the Klondyke in those days!

As you say the GC favoured blue bricks especially for bridges, as did many other railway companies (several SMJ bridges have them) but they did use other sorts as well as can be seen on the railway workmen's homes built at Woodford.

I think you're right about Mr Hawtin, I believe he did live at Byfield or Woodford and not Moreton.

I can remember the market cattle pens at Moreton, they were still there in the 60s. I think years ago they were used mainly as overnight stop overs by the Welsh drovers taking livestock to Northampton market. Incidentally in the '50s several of the old tenant farmers working farms near the Banbury lane around Blakesley were of Welsh descent, even Welsh speaking. Even in the '70s Banbury and Northampton markets used to be reckoned to be No 1 and No 2 in Europe. A lot of market livestock was brought into Banbury Merton Street when I was a kid.

I can see how Culworth GC put Morton (sic) Pinkney station out of business as a coal wharf after all it was nearer to Moreton and had direct connections with Nottinghamshire's coalfields. In my day Culworth's good facilities were little used. The coal sidings in the area I can remember being well used were both on the SMJ, two merchants Wiggins and Williams had their main wharfs at Towcester station, but also had facilities at Blakesley as did Botterill. The coal was brought in on the morning pickup from Blisworth and not via the GC as you might have suspected.

Dick

[Andy Thompson]

Si
Is this the Box Van you speak of at Morton old station site?

Andy

[Si Donal]

Yes Andy it is. I am amazed that it has survived. The current owner of the site has tidied it up very well and I assumed that the old van had gone. I had been tempted once or twice to get into the same field that you took the picture from to look at my old dog walking site, the problem was it was usually full of cattle and I am no fan of them.

I think the van is an 8 ton Midland van. They were quite a common design and frequently sold off to independent railways. There were no identifying marks on the van when I looked it over. When I used to walk the site it was grounded on the corner of the station building foundations. Not sure if it is in salvagable condition but it would need a wooden underframe at the very least.

A nostalgic picture from at least one site member - Sigh.

Simon



Andy Thompson said:

Si
Is this the Box Van you speak of at Morton old station site?

Andy

[Andy Thompson]

Thanks to John Cosford. June 1963

Andy

[Andy Thompson]

The pleasure is mine Si! I was up at my brothers in Towcester this last weekend and managed to fit a bit of SMJ in. Have you seen my video, A43 to the Lucas Bridge? All this (the qwebsite and interest) is my brothers fault. On a trip to get milk at Teso's he said, casually as we entered "you know this is where the station was?" and that was it! 4 or 5 years on I have the site, I given talks on the SMJ (2 this year so far, 3 booked for next year, have written articles on the subject and am still unearthing facts, stories, and people with similar likes!

Its a funny world!

Andy

[Si Donal]

I too went to to "the line", last weekend in fact. I walked the SMJ from Morton Pinkney Station towards Towcester. It's now a farm track. It was my intention to find sopme old artifacts that I used to see as a youth. The one I really wanted to re-visit was not visible owing to the overgrowth of brambles along the trackbed. It is a concrete (? LMS era) gradient post. The spaniel and I failed to find that, however the second artifact is the old wooden "loading stage" at the occupation crossing. That still exists although it is now overgrown with brambales. I beleive this stage was used to load milk churns (because of similar features on other "light" railways but as there was no mains water or a well at the cottage it was probably also used to drop water off to the crossing keeper. The site of the crossing keepers cottage that was used to allow the "hunt" to cross the line from Moreton village towards Canons Ashby is 1/2 mile east of the station.. There are loads of red and engineers bricks still in the ground at the crossing site. I took some photos of the loading stage but the brambles mean that photography will be more succesful in winter; I might also find that elusive gradient post.

Andy Thompson said:

The pleasure is mine Si! I was up at my brothers in Towcester this last weekend and managed to fit a bit of SMJ in. Have you seen my video, A43 to the Lucas Bridge? All this (the qwebsite and interest) is my brothers fault. On a trip to get milk at Teso's he said, casually as we entered "you know this is where the station was?" and that was it! 4 or 5 years on I have the site, I given talks on the SMJ (2 this year so far, 3 booked for next year, have written articles on the subject and am still unearthing facts, stories, and people with similar likes!

Its a funny world!

Andy