Monday 1 February 2016

The Lugg - The river that was a railway - Leominster.

Looking west along the River Lugg. If you had stood in this spot a hundred years ago you would have been standing on a railway line.

Looking east downstream, the curve in the river in the distance is where the train line would have curved around to meet the main railway line.

 Guess these old remains would have had something to do with the old railway line, according to 19th Century maps this is where the old Leominster to Kington line would have been as it spurred off the main line to Ludlow.   

The River Lugg now meanders around the back of the north side of Leominster. Back in the early 19th Century it passed through the centre of town, pretty much parrallel with the route the River Kenwater now takes, passing through the site of what is now the coucil tip. From comparing old maps it looks like the Kenwater and the Lugg met in town near the bridge at Bridge Street.

The Leominster and Kington railway line run by the Great Western Railway, opened for goods traffic on 18 October 1855, it passed along the site that the River Lugg now takes along the back of the houses in the Marshes area. The last passenger train which ran on the Leominster and Kington line departed from Leominster at 8.25pm on 5th February 1955, freight would continue for another 6 years.

A mile long section of the railway was reopened in 2005 at Titley, but is only open by prior appointment.