More old photographs of Market Harborough

The Harborough Museum has added more old photographs to its Flickr account.

There is now a set of photos of Little Bowden, including one that shows there used to be a footbridge beside the level crossing on Scotland Road. The signal box in that picture, by the way, is the one now to be found at Pitsford and Brampton on the Northampton & Lamport Railway.

There is also a set of photographs of Bricky Tip. Several of them show the houses in Bellfields Lane or the railway, so it should be possible to work out exactly where they were taken.

Bricky Tip, now called Windy Ridge, has been threatened with development for some years. The site of the other former brickworks and associated quarry in Market Harborough is now occupied by Symington's Recreation Ground.

When I was a councillor and we were getting the town's leisure centre built, this was one of the locations we considered. But the consultants were adamant that you never know what you will find when you start digging foundations in an area like that, so we disregarded it as a site.

I wonder if the would-be developers of Bricky Tip know what they are doing?

Later. I have found a picture of Little Bowden Crossing signal box taken in 1972 when it was still in situ. It was known as Little Bowden Crossing to differentiate it from Little Bowden Junction on the Midland line to St Pancras.

Little Bowden level crossing in the early 1980s

The Harborough Mail reports:

There’s been another hold-up with the long-awaited footbridge over the main railway line at Little Bowden. 

Though the bridge looks finished, it still can’t be crossed by the public - because Network Rail hasn’t got council permission for it to be used as a public right of way.

The paper goes on to quote my Liberal Democrat county councillor Dr Sarah Hill:

"Network Rail hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory with this. The whole saga has been going on too long. "

It’s annoying to see that the bridge looks like it’s finished, but you can’t use it. I’ve no idea why Network Rail didn’t ask for right-of-way permission weeks ago."

So, after the pedestrian crossing here was abruptly closed in August 2015, we are still waiting to be able to cross the line.

Let's go back 35 years or so to an era when Little Bowden Junction signal box controlled the level crossing.

In those days the crossing gates were controlled from the box, so if a train was signalled you were not able to open them.

Little Bowden Crossing signal box, Market Harborough

This box stood on the line from Market Harborough to Northampton and could be found in the former at the junction of Scotland Road and Northampton Road.

It closed with the line in 1981 - I took this photo a year or so before that - but had an afterlife. Today you can find it on the Northampton & Lamport Railway under the name Pitsford and Brampton.

Meanwhile, there is no news on whether Little Bowden Junction box on the Midland main line survived the closure of Coventry's Electric Railway Museum. I fear it did not.

The Northampton & Lamport Railway

Pitsford and Brampton my arse. This is Little Bowden Crossing signal box.

It used to stand at the end of my road and, although it had gone by the time it had moved here, the rails were still in the road where the level crossing had been. I can still hear the noise cars made rattling over them in my mind's ear.

This afternoon I visited the Northampton & Lamport Railway, where the box has been relocated and renamed. They have a mile or so of track to the south of Brixworth and, as their name suggests, plans to extend it along the route of the former Market Harborough to Northampton line.

To my surprise it was not open to the public on a Saturday in July, but it does open on Sundays and there are a couple of weekend events coming up. A Vintage Gathering on 25/26 July and Ivor the Engine on 1/2 August.

And perhaps the absence of trains in steam and volunteers made things easier for the inquisitive photographer? The Lamport & Northampton has a pleasing selection of steam and diesel locomotives and rolling stock.


As I wrote last week, the route of this old railway is now the occupied by the Brampton Valley Way - a footpath and cycle path. But the railway seems to coexist amicably with it - a lesson to people who oppose railway reopenings elsewhere when the trackbed is now a cycle path.


The old stationmaster's house at Pitsford and Brampton has been converted into a pub called the Brampton Halt. I found it surprisingly charmless and headed for the Spencer Arms up the road at Chapel Brampton.

That is Spencer as in Lady Di - the family seat of Althorp (even the Spencers have now given up pronouncing it All-trup) is only a couple of miles away.

When I came out there was a trap with two grooms trotting past. I assumed they were on their way to a wedding, but maybe life in Spencer country is always like this?

The railway at Scotland Road, Market Harborough

Or Scotland Road, Little Bowden, actually.

When I first moved here the Market Harborough to Northampton line had closed (I was on the last train in August 1981) but there were still rails in the road where the level crossing had been. In my mind's ear I can hear cars going over them.

This slideshow combines shots of the area today with ones taken when the railway was still open.

Before my time, and before the first vintage photograph was taken, there was a footbridge over the railway line beside the signal box.

You can now find that box, rechristened Pitsford and Brampton, on the Northampton and Lamport Railway.