Walk Twelve - Lyonshall
The image at the top of the page shows the old Weymouth Arms next to the tramway and railway at Lyonshall.
Halcyon Days
Halcyon Days is an album by Herefordshire chart-topper Ellie Goulding. The singer-songwriter grew up in Lyonshall, a large, scenic parish bounded by the River Arrow, Titley, Pembridge and Almeley. Three miles from Kington and Hergest Ridge, it’s still a mostly agricultural area. Our walk here in Ellie’s backyard traces the tracks of an ancient tramway and the disused railway which replaced it.
Lyonshall Castle was originally a wooden motte and bailey Norman fort. At the time of Domesday it was in the possession of Roger de Lacy. Stephen Devereux later erected a circular keep similar to the one at Longtown Castle. In1403 Henry IV ordered its re-fortification against the main foe of the Marcher Lords, Owain Glyndwr. By 1674 the Thynnes inherited the castle as a ruin and later sold it to the Cheese family of Castle Weir. Nowadays there are just a few remnants of stone walls and the moat surrounding the motte on the private land to the left as we leave the church to start our walk.
The eight mile long tram road, founded by John Cheese junior in 1818, ran from Kington to Eardisley. In Lyonshall, it came down through Lyonshall Park Wood, passing Tramway Pool, where the horses pulling the trams were briefly unharnessed for refreshment. It curved around the castle and church, and crossed the road, now the A44.
On the other side, the line then passed the timber-framed building The Wharf, a coal depot named after the wharves on the canal system, which were built near towns and villages for handling goods and stabling horses. The Weymouth Arms pub was a stopping-off point in late Georgian and early Victorian times. The route then carried on down our return route, the drive to Lynhales, before crossing the fields and going on its way to Eardisley. Iron rails were laid with a smooth paving stone in between, to enable horses to tow the trams that could weigh up to two tons. The tram was used to deliver stone, cast iron, lime and agricultural produce to South Wales and to import coal and iron. Completed in 1820, it fell into disuse about 40 years later.
Part of the tram’s trackbed was adopted in the 1860s by the Kington & Eardisley railway. Its course took it from Titley Junction east of Castle Weir crossing the bridge which we go under at point 2. After Lyonshall Station the train followed broadly the direction of the tramroad to Eardisley via Almeley.
The line ran past a high concentration of Hereford cattle-rearing farms, such as The Whittern, Lynhales, Elsdon, Castle Weir, The Brook and the Leen at Pembridge. So, on market days seven to eight cattle trucks were hitched to the regular passenger service to convey bulls to the Leominster and Hereford sales. The age of steam on the railways is often recalled as “halcyon days”. Indeed, there are happy memories of the line through Lyonshall- but it was never successful. The Kington & Eardisley Railway was a loss-maker from the start: it was closed during the First World War, reopened in 1920 and finally abandoned in 1940. Ornate Lyonshall station, however, on our route, was rather grand; built on an embankment, it had an entrance below the waiting room and a 200 feet long platform. The impressive row of Wellingtonias opposite the former platform is a landmark for miles around.
Our offbeat circuit reprises a modern track: the hit Figure 8 from Ellie’s own Halcyon Days.