Station Friends

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In late 2004 the Chiltern Railways encouraged the Leamington Society to set up a group to promote the station after its listing as Grade II. Chiltern have supported us throughout, providing facilities, staff resources and financial aid. As part of the Leamington Society The Friends are bound by its Constitution and Aims and Objectives, and have the advantage of charitable status as well as the esteem and recognition by local officials of the county, district and town councils.

The day-to-day running of the Friends is decided at meetings held at the station. These meetings are attended by at least one senior member of Chiltern Railways staff for briefing of events and also to ensure that all decisions of the Friends are acceptable to Chiltern Railways who run the station. 

We are delighted to have Pete Waterman OBE and Ian Baxter as our honorary presidents.

Membership of the Friends is open to non-members of the Leamington Society, although most Friends do eventually join the Society.

History of the Friends

It all started very informally:

Ruth Bennion writes: “One summer evening in 2004 I went to the station with a trowel and secateurs determined to tackle the tatty,  long flowerbed on Platform 2. For years I had reminisced about the pretty little stations with well kept flowerbeds I remembered from my childhood and I kept thinking, “why don’t the station staff at Leamington just pop out and do a bit of weeding between trains?” Obviously I was not very knowledgeable about running the railways!  I knelt on the tarmac and started work.  An hour or so later I paused …. piles of weeds…. and I’d only done 3 or 4 metres and still 40 or 50 to go! I was defeated. Sweat dripped off both my chin and my nose and I’d no plans to deal with the heaps of weeds.”

‘My memory lapses regarding my next  visit and “horrors”, I had not thought to ask permission to do this gardening. However, with two friends we soon established a regular weekly gardening date and were able to look with pride at our achievements and accept compliments from visiting travellers.’

In fact the local Soroptimist group had already been tending to the tubs on the platforms, and have collaborated with the Friends in the development.

Becoming more systematic

Chiltern Railways suggested later on in 2004 that we set up a Friends group, and that they would support our efforts. We developed a routine of bi-monthly meetings that brought together the Chiltern representative with gardeners and others, under Archie Pitts’ chairmanship, and they have been meeting at the station since then.

We were greatly helped in making plans by having mementos and photographs of the station from decades ago. In particular Patrick Kingston, who had been visiting the station with his camera since the 1950s. This has enabled us to accurately restore such fixtures as the waiting room clock and the running-in boards in their original style.