Mid-Wales Railway query

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I have been looking through a box of line drawings that I bought years ago at an auction sale and one item in particular made me wonder. It is a hand-written line drawing in black ink on manilla paper of quite some age that has all the stations and halts marked upon it and in-between Aberedw Halt and Erwood, a station of Tircelyn Platform is shown and underlined.

I have not been able to confirm the existence of such a station and ask website members if they can shed any light on the matter.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Was apparently an unadvertised private platform located about 1.2 miles from Aberedw and 1.5 miles from Erwood, this on the one-time Moat Lane Junction to Brecon line located in Mid Wales.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Many thanks. The fact that it was an unadvertised private platform may well explain why the person who drew up the line drawing underlined that one.

 

[Gloster]

According to Quick it was opened probably pre-2 April 1888. Apparently only open February to October until 1915 when became all year round. May still have been open ca. 1950. The spelling varied. Trains called ‘particularly on market days and Saturdays’.

EDIT: In use by 1872, erected for Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones, but later used by Mr Lewis Lloyd, Mr R.R.Beard (1906), Captain A. Glen Kidston (1913, but he died that year) and Mrs H.A.B.Kidston (1915). Pryce-Jones is probably the father of mail-order and the sleeping bag, although he was not knighted until 1887. The Kidstons appear to be the parents of ‘Bentley Boy’ Glen Kidston: they lived (and Captain A. died) at Gwernyfed, of which the address is given as ‘Three Cocks’.

First sentence of Edit from Cooke’s Diagrams, Section 59, while the rest is from Wikipedia and elsewhere.

 

[Calthrop]

Dewick's rail atlas -- admittedly, at times something of a "poisoned chalice" -- shows this one, in position as per posts above, as "Tir Celyn Platform (private)".

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Mentioned briefly in R.V.J. Butt's "The Directory of Railway Stations" (1995 book) as 'Tir Celyn Platform' (also known as 'Tyr Celyn Platform') albeit with no opening or closing dates shown. O.S. mapping in c. 1905 has the spelling of the immediate locality (including the circumflex over the letter i) as 'Tîr-Celyn'.

(Location is in the top right hand quarter of the map linked below)...

View map: Ordnance Survey, Brecknockshire XVI.NW (includes: Aberedw; Gwenddwr; Llandeilo Graban.) - Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952

maps.nls.uk

Doesn't look all that much changed some four decades later...

View map: Ordnance Survey, Brecknockshire XVI.NW (includes: Aberedw; Gwenddwr; Llandeilo Graban.) - Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952

maps.nls.uk

 

[Rescars]

For the record, Tircelyn does not appear to be listed in the 1904 RCH Handbook of Railway Stations. Not surprising perhaps, given its private status. That said, Dunrobin station is listed - though marked as "private". I wonder what the criteria were which caused a private station to be listed and how many Tircelyn-like very private stations there were on the network. This should probably be the subject a separate thread, but I don't know how to make this happen. Sorry!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A couple of other observations. 'Tîr-Celyn' is Welsh for "holly-land". And in "The Mid Wales Line" by Derek J. Lowe (BookLaw Publications- 2017) 'Tîr-Celyn' is shown as being the highest point on the 16 mile stretch of line from Builth Wells to Talgarth. The same source further states that the Tyr-Celyn halt was a private single platform at milepost 92. The short platform did not appear in the public timetable and was for the residents of a nearby private house. It was in use from 1872 to 1950 (which accords with what @Gloster has already mentioned upthread in post #4).

 

[Gloster]

The house at Gwernyfed was close to Three Cocks station: there does not appear to be more than a couple of houses and a small quarry at Tir Celyn. As Captain Kidston had leased Gwernyfed for sporting purposes, it would seem most likely that the halt was either for sporting purposes, probably to allow those in the house to go shooting, or for those employed or at the quarry, or their wives, a weekly shop. However, this is guesswork.

EDIT: a comment in The Mid-Wales Railway (Kidner, Oakwood, 1990) says that it was for the house just across the road. On Google Earth and Streetview this seems to be a moderate-sized country house.

There is mention of the halt on the Facebook Disused Stations pages. (I am not on F***book.)

FURTHER EDIT: I wonder if the attraction of Tir Celin was salmon fishing. Captain Kidston was keen on that, but another of his favourites, hare coursing, seems less likely to justify a halt. Could the house at Tir Celyn have been a shooting or fishing lodge?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Incidentally, for the first time, it will appear on the current game on the Closed Stations Journey quiz, on the line of the Mid-Wales Railway.