Our day out took us to Stoneywell, an Arts and Crafts house from the late nineteenth century, built away from the road and deep in the woods. It was not an advertised running day on the GCR but we stopped on the way at Quorn and Woodhouse station. The cafĂ© is always open and there was what I thought was likely to be a photographers’ charter train in the down platform. 4953 Pitchford Hall then backed down through the up platform and I just managed to get a shot of her, as well as some intervening foliage.
Stoneywell is carefully tended by the National Trust and it turned out to be a delightful venue with a very welcoming staff. We had a tour of the house and garden. Waiting for the guide to arrive, I half expected a fictional character from the grand-childrens’ books to open the front door - would it be Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, or the Three Bears?
No, it was Doug the guide. He told us about how the Gimson family had first created the house as a summer retreat from their engineering business in Leicester. By the time they had made it their permanent home, down the road at Quorn there was always a chance of a Hall Class locomotive straying onto LNER lines via the connection with the GWR at Banbury. They may even have been able to hear its whistle from afar as they sat in their garden on a pleasant summer’s day.
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