Melton Constable History - Home

Melton Constable History

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Railway History
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Last site update 30th June 2026

This website is the product of a desire to share the history of the village.
When the railway left, the village continued . . .

The Melton Constable History Group was formed as part of Back on the Right Tracks: Exploring and Celebrating Melton Constable's Railway Heritage.
The Back on the Right Tracks project was funded by Historic England as part of the Everyday Heritage grant programme. This grant programme celebrates working class histories and seeks to explore untold stories and celebrate the people and places at the heart of our history.


An extraordinary amount of information is held by members of the families that worked and lived in Melton Constable during the Railway years.  Much of this archive had not seen the light of day beyond the owners' family.

This website sets out to provide as much of that information as possible to a wider audience. 

We are an enthusiastic group of volunteers dedicated to building up and maintaining a photographic and oral history archive of local memories, that have been kindly donated by the families of those that once worked and lived in Melton Constable.

As this is an on going project it is highly recommended that you visit this website on a regular basis.


H J Jackson book
This lovely book will be launched as part of the festival (at the talk H. J. Jackson is giving at 3pm on the Saturday)
and will be available from local bookshops too from that date onwards but for anyone who can't attend, they can still purchase a copy from
https://mascotmedia.co.uk/product/end-of-the-line/

Melton Constable is a village and civil parish in the North Norfolk district of the county of Norfolk, England. It covers an area of 2.69 sq miles and had a population of 618 at the 2011 Census.
The place-name Melton Constable is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Maeltuna. This may mean either middle town or mill town. There is a reference to Constabularius de Melton in 1197, as the land was held by the Constable of the Bishop of Norwich.
Melton Constable reached its heyday in about 1911; in the census of that year, it had a population of 1,157.
It was a new town built in 1880s at the junction of four railway lines, which came from Cromer, North Walsham, Norwich and Kings Lynn and linked Norfolk to the Midlands. 
Melton Constable railway station, with a platform 800 feet long, was constructed with a specially-appointed waiting room for Lord Hastings, the local squire. The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GNJR)'s main workshops and factory were also situated in the village, helping to give it the character of a rural industrialised village. The workshops were often called the Crewe Works of North Norfolk. When in M&GNJR hands, the works built 19 steam locomotives and many wagons.
The Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railway were the shareholders in the joint railway. The GNR looked after the track and buildings, while the MR sorted locomotives and rolling stock. This resulted in maintenance of the 'hand me downs' as main activity. This old rolling stock would have had repairs and renovations in the Melton shops.
The concrete production is the most famous export from Melton Constable. Many concrete items of railway furniture and even station buildings were made at the concrete division there.
Under LNER ownership, the works was gradually degraded until October 1936, when it closed completely. Between 1959 and 1964, British Railways chose to close the lines, withdrawing both passenger and goods services from Melton Constable, which resulted in the slow decline of the village; it now lies stranded in the middle of a vast agricultural area which uses other forms of transport. In 1971, the station was demolished and the works were converted into an industrial estate; several railway buildings are extant and have found other uses.
The railways may eventually return to Melton Constable in future, as part of the Norfolk Orbital Railway's plans to restore former railway lines.
The parish of Melton Constable includes the deserted former parish of Burgh Parva, notable for its ruined church and tin tabernacle replacement.
Wikipedia

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The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway comprised three units. The first consisted of four small contractors lines crossing the district between Peterborough, Bourne, Spalding and Kings Lynn opened in 1858-66 and worked by the Great Northern and Midland Companies both wanting to extend into north Norfolk.
The second was an independent line from Yarmouth to North Walsham opened in 1879-81. The Lynn and Fakenham Railway merged with this company in 1882 to form the Eastern & Midlands Company. The first track was laid in May 1881 and the works were brought into operation in 1883 and closed in October 1936.
The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway was formed in 1893.
The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway built its works at Melton Constable, the central junction on its system.
The site of the works was original chosen by the Lynn and Fakenham Railway who undertook the initial building. A map of Norfolk shows a ridge of high land running roughly from a little north-east of Fakenham to that part of the coast between Cromer and Mundesley, the highest altitude being as much as 327 feet above Ordnance Datum in what is a generally very flat area. It follows that any railway to serve North Norfolk from the west must negotiate this Cromer Ridge. This requires the line either to run along the ridge or to cross it. In the other proposals, i.e. those of the Great Eastern Railway and the CNLR, these lines were to cross the ridge through the Briston Gap where the Glaven valley could have been reached without exceeding 160 feet above O.D. But the route of the Lynn & Fakenham Extension had first to ascend the ridge by the Thursford Bank to the summit of Pigg’s Grave 312 feet above O.D., run comparatively level to just west of Briston, where a station was proposed and gradually downhill south-east to Aylsham and beyond. One part of the western boundary of Melton Constable is 323 feet above O.D. and the site of the works about 280 feet and sloping slightly eastward.
In choosing the site the ruling factor was the availability of the necessary land. The major landowner was Lord Hastings and he made land available in the two adjoining parishes of Melton Constable and Burgh Parva so that the works and station became situated not in the existing settlement of Briston but in an almost new village. Thus Melton Constable grew because of the Briston Gap (geological) and the position of the land made available (private enterprise). Any disadvantages were minor ones such as scarcity of labour, a slightly sloping site and variable soils - sand, chalk, marl and clay for foundations. The advantages were few but major, in that all reservoirs could be sited as high as possible on top of the slopes, the drainage was natural towards Burgh Beck in the north-west and River Bure in the east and 25 acres of land were available.
The new works at Melton Constable were initially built and brought into operation by Mr J W Mann who had been appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the Lynn and Fakenham Railway in 1880. On 10th May 1881 the first track was laid, the foundations of the various shops were put in, part of the walls put up and the framework of many houses in Melton Street erected.
Although commenced by the L&FR, completion was carried out by the Eastern & Midlands Railway. The works first operated in 1883. At first a little trouble was experienced with the foundations in the mixture of sand, clay and marl but this was later overcome and the sheds of brick with iron window frames and iron and wood roofs safely erected.
The ironwork was by Everitt, Adams & Co. of Great Ryburgh.
The dimensions of the works were
Carriage and Wagon shop 80 ft. x 150 ft
Locomotive shop 120 ft. x 125 ft
Smith’s shop 40 ft. x 100 ft
(With 30 forges and a 25 cwt. Massey steam hammer)

This website contains a considerable amount of historical and genealogical data.
All pages should be easily accessible via the links above.

Wanted!

Information on Melton Constable, its social history and its railway.
Also photographs for copying (repairing if necessary) and preserving.
All photographs would of course be returned immediately
Please email or telephone 07836 675369


Many individuals and organisations have between them, provided a vast amount of assistance and archive information for inclusion on this website. Please take time to visit the credits page to view some of the information sources.


If you have any memories, anecdotes or photos please let us know and we may be able to use them to update the site. By all means email or telephone 07836 675369.
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Copyright © Jonathan Neville 2025
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