Counter Drain station: Here today, gone tomorrow!

THE Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway’s (MGNJR) Counter Drain station building at the fenland village of Tongue End, near Spalding, has been legally demolished in the past month – despite parish councillors being told it was a heritage asset.’

Not part of the Department for Transport’s Historical Railways Estate, South Holland District Council gave permission for the building, known in recent decades as Railway Cottage, to be demolished and replaced with a new four-bedroom house on the same site.

History

The station, named after a local drainage ditch, was opened by the Spalding & Bourne Railway on August 1, 1866, and later became part of the MGNJR route from the East Midlands to Norfolk.

The station closed on March 2, 1959, while the line stayed open for goods until 1964.

As previously reported in Heritage Railway, Bourne History Group is campaigning to save Bridge 234, (also not part of the Historical Railways Estate) on the MGNJR’s route from Saxby to Bourne, from being demolished as part of plans to expand the town’s modern Elsde Park housing estate and lay a children’s play area on the site.

A petition again the demolition is running at https://tinyurl.com/ BourneBridge

ROBIN JONES A view from April 18 shows the building, which has stood since mid-Victorian times, has now gone forever.

ROBIN JONES Railway Cottage, the former Counter Drain station, was long a landmark on the fen road between Spalding and the village of Baston.