It was quite a relief to close the gate behind me, a much-needed physical barrier separating myself from the sizeable posse of cows that had decided to follow me as I walked across the marshy Norfolk Broads towards the Berney Arms Pub. Before being accosted, I’d enjoyed watching lapwings flit and tumble through the air, hares bounding and rollicking among the wild flowers, the vastness of the views, where the watery flatness indecipherably merges with the huge sky.
Kevin Crossley-Holland perfectly captures the landscape in his poem Dusk, Burnham Over Staithe.
There’s a handsome, solitary windmill surveying the huge landscape. Norfolk's tallest, it is currently under restoration by English Heritage, it ground cement until 1948 before finding a fresh life pumping water from the Broads.
I made the journey in June 2011, inspired to make the effort after reading about it in Michael Williams’ lovely book, On The Slow Train, calling it ‘Britain’s smallest mainline station’. And he writes:
'Once the train has clattered off into the distance, there is only the sound of a few rooks wheeling overhead and just a whisper of breeze gently brushing the grass.’
Normally, just a handful of services stop by request and for the few people who do visit, its miniscule scale and remoteness is the major attraction. That day I wasn't the only person to have alighted from the two coach Wherry Lines service from Norwich. Two bird watchers, identifiable by their outfits and binoculars clambered out with me. I waited on the platform until they drifted out of sight.
The platform itself is no longer than the length of one train carriage. A ramshackle wooden box offers minimal protection from the elements. It’s a strange island, floating in a sea of green, entirely unconnected to its surroundings, in a timeless landscape, almost as though it has been dropped there by accident.
This jaunt returned to my mind this week as the latest statistics on the passenger numbers of individual stations was published. Berney Arms remains firmly planted near the bottom but that year it was quite busy, with more than 1,436 visitors across the year. Last year, obviously at the height of the pandemic, just 42 people made it there. In 2021, there has been something of a recovery with 348 passengers, up 729 per cent.
Its closure was a huge pity as it was quite delightful with fabulous views that only change with the seasons. There is a campaign to reopen the pub but hope appears to be forlorn. An application to open a bistro on the site was refused in 2020 with councillors refusing it on the basis emergency vehicles couldn't easily reach its location. Considering it had previously been licenses for decades, the decision seems both historically ignorant and shortsighted. To make matters worse, some nearby moorings for boats have reportedly been removed, making its viability even more challenging.
It was a flight of whimsy that took me there. And according to the latest passenger statistics, last year, there were six stations which had no visitors at all. Abererch, Gwynedd, Beasdale, Highland, Llanbedr, Gwynedd, Sampford Courtenay, Devon, Stanlow and Thornton, Cheshire and Sugar Load, Powys.
Somewhere, people are dusting down their virtual Bradshaw's and planning out how to get there.
