Colwall Railway Station

The village of Colwall nestles on the western side of the Malvern Hills beneath the Iron Age British Camp and is right on the border of Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
 
Now home to approximately 2,400 residents, at the time of the Norman Conquest, Colwall was dominated by the bishops of Hereford until 1868. The Malvern Hills were a great attraction (and still are today) and with the opening of the railway line from Hereford to Worcester in 1861, tourists arrived in Colwall, which encouraged the development of a racecourse and the bottling of spring water, indeed the Malvern Hills Mineral Water factory was located near to the station.
 
Colwall has a wonderful range of black and white timber-framed cottages, farmhouses and barns. Its medieval church sits next to its early-16th century church ale house, a rare survivor from pre-Reformation England.
 
Colwall has many links with the railway. Stephen Ballard, the engineer to the line and the builder of Ledbury Viaduct lived here. A single platform railway station serves the village on the single-track line between the Great Malvern and Ledbury railway stations, which passes through the Colwall Tunnels, the first of which was dug under the Malvern Hills between 1856 and 1860. The original tunnel was closed in the 1920s when it was in danger of collapse, but it was used as a torpedo store during the Second World War; it is now a roost for a colony of lesser horseshoe bats. Local stone from the many Malvern Hills quarries was loaded onto trains in the goods yard. Near to the station is Colwall Park Hotel, a country house hotel purpose built in 1905 to serve the now defunct Colwall Park Racecourse.

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