The life and times of the Horncastle Railway

SINCE moving to Mortons in November 2010, The Railway Magazine’s home has been the pleasant Lincolnshire market town of Horncastle, whose one and only railway was the 7½-mile branch to Kirkstead (later renamed Woodhall Junction) on the Great Northern Railway’s Lincolnshire Loop line. It closed to passengers on September 13, 1954 and to goods traffic on April 5, 1971.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the railway’s demise, the town’s History and Heritage Society organised a special exhibition, written and researched by Chris Bates with important contributions by Ian Marshman, but the springtime Covid-19 restrictions meant a virtual exhibition was posted online instead.

Now the full indoor exhibition is set to open from July 29 until September 4, with free admission, at the Joseph Banks Centre in Horncastle (although it is still available online at https://horncastlejbc.info/railway).

Building the line

No stone is left unturned in telling the story of the line, including its construction and grand opening celebrations of 1855, the changes it brought to the town, and what life on the line and around the station itself were like.

In the early 1850s, Horncastle was