New sitting area at Leamington Station is officially opened by town mayor

A ceremony was held at Leamington Station yesterday (Monday April 22) to celebrate The Friends of Leamington Station’s completion of their Coronation Corner project.

The project was the idea of Leamington’s station manager for the last 13 years, Liane McCarthy, who wanted to enhance an unused area on Platform Two into a place where passengers could sit in the sun on fine days and enjoy looking out on the station’s garden whilst waiting for their trains.

An application for the necessary funding was duly submitted to Chiltern Railways Community Rail Partnership by Archie Pitts, his last of many successful fundraising efforts for the station before he died last July.

The Friends drew up a plan for two long raised beds in an L shape with two new three-metre long replica GWR benches aligned with the beds.

As soon as the rail partnership’s grant of £10,000 was confirmed, Warwick Garden Services was commissioned to construct the raised beds and to stock them with appropriate plants.

The beds were in situ by the first week of December.

The benches were installed last month before the Easter holidays.

The ceremony was attended by Leamington Mayor, Councillor Alan Boad, and The Chair of Warwick District Council, Sidney Syson.

They were greeted on arrival by David Heathfield, Chiltern Railways’ head of corporate affairs, and Robin Adams, joint chairman of The

Friends.