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Wymondham Road, MELTON MOWBRAY, LE14 2SL

This long-abandoned railway embankment is one with an interesting and sensational history. In the 1840s Lord Harborough did all he could to prevent the building of the Midland Railway line from Leicester (Syston) to Peterborough. Lord Harborough’s men and the Midland’s surveyors engaged in fisticuffs, the surveyors were locked up and then released on the advice of the local policeman, and in further confrontations both the peer and the railway company employed ruffians to fight their corners. Eventually a compromise was reached, and Lord Harborough’s Curve – a deviation whose tightness was later to prove a handicap to high-speed running of the Midland’s Nottingham-Kettering-St Pancras expresses – was opened in 1848 to take the line east of Saxby without damaging Lord Harborough’s view too much. The next Lord Harborough was better disposed towards railways, and Lord Harborough’s Curve was replaced by the present, more generous curve (behind the camera) in 1892, when the Saxby & Bourne Railway – the most westerly part of the Midland & Great Northern route from the East Midlands to the Norfolk coast – was also built. This spot is called Pile Bridge because the Curve crossed a lane and the River Eye here on a wooden pile bridge - long gone, leaving only the name to perplex future generations.

I wonder if this little bridge was built by the railway contractors in 1892, when the Saxby and Bourne Railway and the new curve on the Leicester to Peterborough line (behind the camera) were built - it is identical in style and material, and very substantial for a farm bridge.

The abandoned railway embankment which crosses this picture is one with an interesting and sensational history. In the 1840s Lord Harborough did all he could to prevent the building of the Midland Railway line from Leicester (Syston) to Peterborough. Lord Harborough’s men and the Midland’s surveyors engaged in fisticuffs, the surveyors were locked up and then released on the advice of the local policeman, and in further confrontations both the peer and the railway company employed ruffians to fight their corners. Eventually a compromise was reached, and Lord Harborough’s Curve – a deviation whose tightness was later to prove a handicap to high-speed running of the Midland’s Nottingham-Kettering-St Pancras expresses – was opened in 1848 to take the line east of Saxby without damaging Lord Harborough’s view too much. The next Lord Harborough was better disposed towards railways, and Lord Harborough’s Curve was replaced by the present, more generous curve (behind the camera) in 1892, when the Saxby & Bourne Railway – the most westerly part of the Midland & Great Northern route from the East Midlands to the Norfolk coast – was also built, commencing at Saxby Junction, just to the west of here and clearly shown on the OS map.

Wrong location, changed image title and location.

The long-abandoned and overgrown railway embankment which crosses this picture is one with an interesting and sensational history. In the 1840s Lord Harborough did all he could to prevent the building of the Midland Railway line from Leicester (Syston) to Peterborough. Lord Harborough’s men and the Midland’s surveyors engaged in fisticuffs, the surveyors were locked up and then released on the advice of the local policeman, and in further confrontations both the peer and the railway company employed ruffians to fight their corners. Eventually a compromise was reached, and Lord Harborough’s Curve – a deviation whose tightness was later to prove a handicap to high-speed running of the Midland’s Nottingham-Kettering-St Pancras expresses – was opened in 1848 to take the line east of Saxby without damaging Lord Harborough’s view too much. The next Lord Harborough was better disposed towards railways, and Lord Harborough’s Curve was replaced by the present, more generous curve, to the south, in 1892, when the Saxby & Bourne Railway – the most westerly part of the Midland & Great Northern route from the East Midlands to the Norfolk coast – was also built. The estate farmhouse takes its name, Pile Bridge, from the wooden-pile bridge which carried Lord Harborough's Curve over the lane on which I stood to take the picture. Only the name remains, to perplex future generations.

The road crossing the River Eye

Saxby Junction (a couple of hundred yards to the left) was where the Saxby & Bourne Railway - the westernmost part of the Midland & Great Northern route from the East Midlands to the Norfolk coast joined the Midland line from Leicester (Syston Junction) to Peterborough. The Saxby & Bourne closed in 1959 but the Leicester-Peterborough line is still an important cross-country route. The further of these two three-arch bridges over the infant River Eye and a bridleway is the abandoned S&B one.

See http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5197755 for location.

Farm buildings alongside the road from Wymondham. There is a bench mark http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5197753 on the corner of the brick building.

Saxby Junction (a couple of hundred yards to the right) was where the Saxby & Bourne Railway - the westernmost part of the Midland & Great Northern route from the East Midlands to the Norfolk coast joined the Midland line from Leicester (Syston Junction) to Peterborough. The Saxby & Bourne closed in 1959 but the Leicester-Peterborough line is still an important cross-country route. The nearer of these two bridges over the infant River Eye is the abandoned S&B one. Behind the camera is the embankment of Lord Harborough's Curve, abandoned as long ago as 1892, described in the captions to some of my pictures in SK8219.