By all accounts it was a well-kept station, the banks covered with primroses, and it was the only station on the line not to have goods facilities. Photos of the station are rare. See later in the chapter for more details.

Upper Broughton village is just half a mile from the station - very close by Nottingham & Melton Line standards. Upper Broughton (Broughton Solney or Over Broughton) has remained a small community of some three hundred inhabitants since the arrival of the railway. The village centre is built around a triangle of roads formed by the A606 and the road to Willoughby. It has been awarded the "neatest village in Nottinghamshire" a number of times, and early trade directories describe how large quantities of Stilton cheese were made in the village.

Years ago, Upper Broughton celebrated a custom known as "Plough Monday", not dissimilar to "Penny for the Guy". The local lads, having dressed up and blacked their faces, would go round the houses singing. When the residents answered the knocks on their doors, the lads would say "please remember the plough boys", whereupon the adults would give them a few odd pennies.

In 1881, the village already had a carrier, George Linney, whose horse-pulled van took passengers and parcels to Nottingham at 0800 on Mondays and market days, Wednesdays and Saturdays. It was not a lot different in 1932 with Hubert & Percy Payne moving passengers and parcels to Nottingham as before, and to Melton on its market day, Tuesdays, via Grimston and Saxelby. It seems that the local residents did not regard the railway as a monopoly. Horse and trap were used by the better off to get to Nottingham or Melton, and the cattle were walked to both markets before the advent of lorries.

South of the station there is a heavy embankment, containing 400,000 cubic yards of earthwork. In the early 1970s the fields south of Upper Broughton were the chosen location for a mine to tap the reserves of coal in the Vale of Belvoir. However, much to the relief of local people, the plans were abandoned when, apparently, geological tests indicated there would be long-term stability problems with a mine positioned here.

Looking north over bridge 46 from 112m 07c in Sep 1967

Looking north from near Bridge 47 from 111m 60c in Sep 1967

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Copyright Colin Aldworth 1989 - 2004