Raise a glass to Henley-in-Arden station’s new micro brewery and community hub
The fantastic news that the once long neglected Henley-in-Arden station building has opened as a micro brewery and community hub is a welcome development for a station that serves such a tourist hot spot. The official opening on Thursday in a ceremony attended by Network Rail chairman Peter Hendy, is the culmination of efforts that commenced in 2019, when a group of volunteers embarked on the task of trying to acquire the lease for the abandoned GWR station buildings that dated from 1908 – when the station opened. They finally achieved their dream in January last year when the Friends of Henley Railway station signed a 25 year lease. At the time of opening It was the principal intermediate station on the line between Tyseley and Stratford and was on the route to Cheltenham – the line beyond Stratford-upon-Avon having closed in 1976, part of which now forms the Gloucester and Warwickshire Steam Railway. In the 1980s, British Rail wanted to curtail the line at Henley-in-Arden but a fierce battle from furious passengers saw the plans dropped.
The last member of station staff was withdrawn in the 1970s – a far cry from the 1920s when it could boast a station master who was in charge of a general clerk, two leading porters, a goods checker, a motor parcel van man, three signalmen and one part-time char woman.
For seven years after opening, Henley-in-Arden was a junction station – a branch to Lapworth diverging just beyond the signal box. Passenger services over the branch temporarily ceased on 22 March 1915 as a wartime economy measure. This was made permanent on 1 January 1917, although a short section of the branch was retained for goods traffic until the 1960s.
While it's lovely to see life breathed back into the station buildings, it's so sad that the lovely GWR signal box is no ore – having been closed and demolished in October 2010. Throughout that year I spent many hours in all the signal boxes on the line (pictures and detailed captions in the book 'Keeping The Wheels Turning' link here: https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop/p/jspjjid4pvbjvfg7zoh0vm2vctyii1) photographing and interviewing the staff at work. I spent the day at Henley-in-Arden signal box on 22 October 2010 – the day it closed – and a couple of pictures from that day (from Rail Picture Library) are here: http://tinyurl.com/48aunx83 and http://tinyurl.com/4nwen9j9 including the final shift change over. In its final years it was worked by resident signallers Niasha Nugent and Bob Mc Master – the box being open Monday to Friday and switched out at weekends. Containing 57 levers, by 2010 much of the layout had been rationalised, including the track in the former bay platforms, leaving just eight levers in use. As I turned to leave on 22 October, Bob McMaster remarked that it was hard to believe that in a few days a mechanical digger would rip the roof off and reduce where we were standing to a pile of rubble. One week later, that is exactly what happened.
Chime Whistle Publishing books: https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop
Chime Whistle Publishing picture library – commissions and picture requests welcome – railpicturelibrary.com. Have worked with/supplied pictures to Hitachi, Thales, Bombardier, Virgin Trains and Chiltern Railways and Rail magazine to name but a few clients.