AS the roof was being installed on the main building at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s new Broadway terminus, the heritage line was busy opening another ‘new’ station.
Monday, June 5, saw Hayles Abbey Halt officially reopened by railway patron Lord Wemyss, the Earl of Wemyss and March from nearby Stanway House.
This is the family that once owned the Wemyss Private Railway in Fife – an extensive network of lines serving the coalfield and docks with a fleet of steam locomotives.
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The halt – spelled Hayles by the GWR – opened in September 1928 to coincide with the opening of a museum at the nearby Cistercian Hailes Abbey but was closed by British Railways in 1960,
when local passenger services on the Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham line were withdrawn.
New museum
The reopening of the halt coincided with the opening of a new museum at the abbey which today is run by English Heritage and owned by the National Trust and is just five minutes’ walk away. Hailes Fruit Farm, which once despatched its produce from the halt, can also be accessed.
The halt rebuilding project was carried out thanks to a £12,000 grant from the charitable Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Trust, as well as a grant of £2,500 from the Cotswold Conservation Board. It was completed entirely by volunteers in less than a year.
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