Walk Nine - Bredenbury, Wacton, “Fencote” and Grendon Bishop
The image at the top of the page shows Fencote Station at the top of a gradient from Bredenbury on the Bromyard and Leominster line.
Not Exactly HS2
Francis Wigley Greswolde Greswolde-Williams was a man of many parts as well as many names. In 1898 he purchased Bredenbury Court from W.H.Barneby who had received Bredenbury as a wedding present. Barneby had already transformed the upland village 3 miles west of Bromyard to cater for the Court household and estate. When “Greswolde” moved in, he added a ballroom, a vaulted dining-room and built some impressive stables which were thought to be modelled on those at Sandringham.
A steward at Worcester races, Greswolde was a daring horseman and kept his own pack of hounds. The Deputy Lieutenant and popular employer provided a Reading Room to support his wife’s plan of keeping the men in the village away from the New Inn. In the 1920s he divided his time between England and Kenya where he owned some of the most coveted big game country in Africa.
But there was a darker side to this godfather of Barbara Cartland and Justice of the Peace. Greswolde is known as chief supplier of cocaine to the notorious “Happy Valley” set. Royalty visited the set’s chief watering-hole at the Muthaiga Club in Nairobi in the shape of Prince George and the Duke of Windsor, later Edward VIII. In 1928 Greswolde found himself sitting next to the heir to the throne and had the temerity to offer him cocaine in between dinner courses. According to a Martley contemporary, he next found himself going through a plate glass window.
On the railway front, Greswolde built a back drive from Bredenbury Court to give easier access to the Bromyard & Leominster at Rowden Mill station. He often commandeered the train and every year a coach was put at his disposal in the sidings ready for the family to go shooting in Scotland. The Bromyard & Leominster branch does seem to have provided a very personal service. In its early days a party of regulars had forgotten their playing cards. When boarding at Leominster, one of them had a quiet word with the guard; somewhere between Steens Bridge and Fencote, the obliging official proceeded to stop the train. From there, he dashed across a couple of fields to an isolated cottage and duly returned with a gleaming pack of cards. Beyond Rowden Mill at Wicton farm, it was not unknown for the driver himself to nip out and pick up a couple of dozen eggs.
The line closed in September 1952 due to lack of traffic. Fencote, only 2½ miles higher up than Rowden, still took nine minutes to reach because of the stiff gradient. Our walk gives a perspective of the climb involved. At 685 feet Fencote was one of the highest stations on the Great Western Railway and because it was the passing point between Bromyard and Leominster, it had two platforms and a fine signal box. Now restored to its former glory in the GWR livery, with occasional Open Days, it is privately owned and can be seen from the walk. There was a steep incline each side of the station and a coal wagon with a defective parking brake once broke away from Fencote and hurtled towards Leominster at about 60 mph. Fortunately the staff there had been forewarned, and the train was pointed straight through the yard and engine shed to shatter in a field behind.
Passing through delightful and unpopulated countryside, personified by our visit to the somnolent churchyard at Grendon Bishop, the line was probably always doomed to failure. “HS2” it was not.