Somerleyton was opened in 1847 by the Norfolk Railway. This was taken over, like all on the surrounding lines, in the mid 1800’s by the Great Eastern Railway. The village which it serves is around 1 mile from here.
As well as Somerleyton hall, which has featured in many films and tv shows including the crown as a replica for Sandringham, the village has another claim to fame. It was home to the first testing of the hovercraft, which was built by Sir Christopher Cockerell.
The line moves towards Norwich over the river Waveney via the Somerleyton swing bridge, pictured below. This can yield some pretty good photos and video of trains coming to and from the station.
Even after extensive research , I could not find any documentation of sidings at this location, however there used to be a major brickworks nearby, so I would assume that they would have had a siding or two. If anyone knows anymore, please comment below.
In fact, details about the station history are extremely sparse, I would welcome more information to flesh out this Blog, but unfortunately after a lot of looking this is all the history I could find.
At time of writing , passenger services are provided by class 755 Bi-Mode Units. Other movements are very rare, with just an occasional engineering, measurement or rail head treatment train.
The entry and exit figures for 2019 / 2020 were 10, 898.
Somerleyton is a very picturesque station, plenty of flowers and trees, plus good sweeping views of the track make it ideal for photography and videography; just check to see if an engineering train is due and it should yield a superb and unique photo. The original station building is a bonus, albeit now in private hands. Overall a superb little station which hopefully will remain open in the future.
Oh and also comment about pronunciation of this station, I am unsure of it, and wary of getting it wrong!
Below is my Vlog which I filmed during a visit in 2021 :
Rainham Rail Enthusiast 