Dad’s Army station saved in cliff-hanger
BRANDON STATION, on the Breckland line, has been saved from demolition in the nick of time following an extraordinary intervention by SAVE Britain’s Heritage (SAVE) and the Suffolk Building Preservation Trust (SBPT).
SAVE sought a judicial review after leaseholder Abellio Greater Anglia applied for permission to demolish the station buildings (built in 1845) in order to expand the station car park. The application was endorsed by Breckland District Council (BDC) in May 2020, despite overwhelming local opposition and campaigning by two local MPs.
The council had issued a Lawful Development Certificate, which allowed Abellio Greater Anglia to demolish the station under permitted railway development rights. At the High Court, BDC accepted that it had failed to apply the legal test for what was railway land and overlooked SAVE’s representations, and it consented to the certificate being quashed.
The building’s future is now more assured as, on August 28, Historic England designated it a Grade Iilisted building of architectural and historic importance. This was after new research was presented by SAVE and the SBPT, aided by railway historian Michael Fell OBE.
The architect was leading early Victorian artist and sculptor John Thomas (1813-1862), a selftaught genius, whose patrons included Prince Albert, Charles Barry (architect of the Palace of Westminster) and railway baron Sir Morton Peto. He was also responsible for Attleborough, Thetford and Wymondham stations, all listed Grade II. The station was built in local Brandon flint by contractors Thomas and William Piper of London as the terminus of the Norfolk and Eastern Counties railways.
Brandon was the leading supplier of military gunflint in World War Two and in September 1945 King George
VI, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester alighted at the station to visit local military installations. It served as the principal station for American Air Force personnel at RAF Lakenheath and Mildenhall. The station also featured in a 1968 episode of Dad’s Army, which was filmed around the area, and this is referenced in the official listing.
The station buildings had been disused and boarded up for a generation but now both SAVE and the SBPT will work together with Abellio Greater Anglia and Network Rail on plans to repair the historic station and bring it back to use. Richard Horner