A poignant relic comes home

My good Friend Lyndon Knott met up recently, Lyndon obtained ,marked up , transported and rebuilt, Monmouth Troy station at Winchcombe, he also rescued this hand painted loading sign from the Fruit packing shed at Toddington Station in 1970.

The packing shed was huge and wooden, standing, roughly at the southern end of the David Page Engine shed.

It was long gone before the GWSR arrived.

Lyndon has made a donation, of the sign to us, we are very pleased to be custodians for the next part of it's life.

Toddington was once home to the biggest fruit Orchard in Europe, and the large size of the Station yard, was to deal with  the transfer not only of large quantities of fruit , but jams and preserves made at the Toddington Jam factory, now Orchard Industrial estate.

Several tramways, to pick and transport  fruit, were laid in the west field north of Toddington, along the Broadway road, as well as one, at the last surviving part of the fruit growing industry, at Hayles Fruit Farm.

Toddington Jam Factory, only one small building remains today , hidden on the Orchard Industrial estate.

To see fantastic photos taken from the air in the 1930's please visit the fabulous website, Britain from above, and type in Toddington in the search panel.

This website is superb ,and  well worth visiting to find aerial photographs of locations, that could be  of interest to you, too.