Fiddler's Hill

The station yard of the heritage Whitwell & Reepham Railway

On the heritage Whitwell & Reepham Railway

Heading towards Whitwell.

At the junction with Mill Road

Near Malthouse Farm

The cemetery contains four War Graves

As agriculture becomes more and more mechanised, indeed industrialised, farms like this one are becoming more common.

This section of the Way (footpath and cycleway) is close to the point where it loops back towards Reepham at Themelthorpe TG0623. It is close to the weak bridge in TG0920.

Those were the days when the Norfolk Wildlife Park offered wildlife that children could easily see.

Heading north west.

This seemed to be the centre of this tiny village. Church is to right of photo and pond is behind.

Behind the photographer is the church.

Barclays & Co. was formed in 1871 by members of the Barclay family but was a quite separate business to the better known Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co Ltd (now Hunslet-Barclay Ltd). Delivered new to S.J Claye Ltd of Long Eaton in Derbyshire to work their coal and fireclay mines, she became 'No.1' in their loco fleet. 945 worked at Long Eaton until 1930 when she went to Charles Roberts for an overhaul. From there she was sold to Yates, Duxbury & Sons paper mill at Heap Bridge in Heywood, Lancs. There she remained until October 1974 and was the last-working of three small saddle tank locos, and the last working non-Coal Board steam loco in the north west of England. By the 1960s she was in very bad mechanical condition. The line into the paper mill was steeply graded and featured tight curves and she was worn out but continued on in service. The other two locos, 'Annie' and 'May', both built by Peckett of Bristol, were condemned by that time, although not scrapped. As it happened all three locos were preserved. 945 never carried any name during its working life. 945 was sold and moved a few miles up the road to the Bury Transport Museum, along with the Peckett 'Annie', however the true condition of the Peckett saw it sold for scrap and the name 'Annie' was transferred to the Barclay. The Peckett was however not scrapped and still lives on, also carrying the name 'Annie'. 'Annie' changed hands again in 1984 and moved south to the newly opened Lavender Line at Isfield in East Sussex where she was overhauled, with some boiler work being undertaken, and entered service carrying a mid-blue livery lined in red, to try to look a bit like a Thomas engine. She passed into the ownership of the Lavender Line Preservation Society and was stripped down for another overhaul. This overhaul did not take place as the Lavender Line did not have the money or resources, and she was sold to her current owner in 1998 who restarted the overhaul. This overhaul was very thorough and involved a lot of replacement parts being made, and existing parts being rebuilt. Work undertaken includes: provision of a new main steam pipe; straightening and re-machining the left-hand piston rod; white-metalling the axle boxes; two new cab sides; extensive welding to the saddle tank; twenty-four new boiler stays and a complete re-tube. Most of this work was undertaken single-handedly or with just a little help. The rush was on to get the loco finished in time for its 100th birthday, and this was achieved with the boiler passing its test in June 2004. A party to celebrate was held in November 2004 attended by the mayor of Uckfield. 'Annie', along with steam crane 'Horace', was moved to Chatham Historic Dockyard in March 2005. Annie was right at home on the dockyard railway system as shunting wagons around an industrial system is the type of work she was built to do. The Dockyard also had some Barclay saddletank locos similar to her working on the dockyard system, one of which was called 'Empire' and was built in 1903. ‘Annie’ was purchased by the Whitwell & Reepham Railway Preservation Society for £20,000 and was delivered on the 24th March 2009. Taken from Link

The station was opened in 1882 as part of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway's (M&GN) branch from the main line at Melton Constable to Norwich City. Whilst the route was fairly well-used, it struggled under the competition from the larger Great Eastern Railway and its more direct lines. Only one year prior to opening, the Great Eastern had inaugurated its own station at Reepham which, unlike Whitwell, was conveniently sited to the settlement it purported to serve. The M&GN suffered in the post-war period which saw much freight transfer to road and greater car ownership, leaving the line with its summer and schools traffic. In the face of spiralling losses, British Rail made the decision to close the majority of the line, leaving Whitwell open for freight until 1964. The track through the station remained, however, down until 1985 for the purposes of concrete product movements to neighbouring Lenwade railway station. The station site itself was variously used post-closure as a tree surgery, offices, the parking of coaches and a workshop and garage. Following the lifting of the track through the station, the trackbed was reused as part of the Marriott's Way from 1993. At one point there was even a proposal to dismantle the station building and re-erect it at Holt station on the North Norfolk Railway. In 2007 it was purchased by a local enthusiast who with the R&W railway society reopened the station in February 2009.