GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Leamington South Junction: gwrls3942

A close up of the area south of the canal. This large plot of land adjacent to the canal was purchased from Lord Guernsey in July 1852. After the construction of the L&NWR and Great Western Railway lines, the land between them was laid out as a locomotive depot for the Great Western Railway. A four road straight engine shed was built in 1905, adjacent to which was a sand furnace, coaling stage with 45,000 gallon water tank above and a 65 foot over-girder turntable. A ramp allowed several coal wagons to be taken into the upper part of the coaling stage and three sidings were provided to store more. A large quantity of locomotive coal was also stacked at the end of these three sidings. Between the engine shed and Great Western Railway main line, five carriage sidings were laid out at the end of 1909.

One of the buildings purchased with the Lord Guernsey plot of land was a Malthouse which had been built adjacent to the canal. This was on the other side of the L&NWR line. This corner of land and the Malthouse were considered surplus and were sold to Mr Mulliner on 8th January 1867. On the 1925 map ('gwrls2044') there is a private siding to the Malthouse with a trailing connection to the L&NWR line, but there is no record of this private siding in the Railway Clearing House (RCH) Handbook for that year. By 1934, the Malthouse looks disused and the private siding has been removed with only the track bed and boundary gate remaining.

Robert Ferris

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