Woodford Short History
Regeneration
In the wake of the railway closure, Northants County Council acquired the old site of the wagon shops and locomotive works to construct a new industrial estate providing jobs for the village to replace some of those lost with the end of the railway. The project was not without its problems – the old embankment had to be stripped away removing hundreds of tons of spoil while demolishing the railway bridge across the Byfield Road took three weeks instead of the three days anticipated. The Beaver Centre and then the Great Central Trading Estate opened on this land and continue to provide important local sources of employment.
The land alongside was bought by the Parish Council from British Railways to provide a sports field for the village, eventually transferring to the Sports & Recreation Association (SARA) and finally becoming the home of the football club, the bowls club and many other village sports.
There was also debate about the use of the old marshalling yard embankment and the station site. Eventually the bank was planted with woodland and the station area became the home of Main Line Timber.
The 1970s onwards saw further housing development with mainly smaller developments after the large Byfield Estate.
Other aspects of the village took a backward turn. The village’s secondary school closed in 1970 (the primary school moved into the buildings that it once occupied) and by 1971 two of the village’s three pubs had closed. None of the shops in Parsons Street or High Street survived the closing of the railway (although the tiny corrugated iron roofed shed that once was a cobblers can still be seen at the corner of South Street and High Street). The village no longer has its own doctor’s surgery (although the Byfield practice still opens a surgery in the Memorial Hall daily). Nor does St Mary’s Church have a full time vicar, the church being part of the benefice of Aston le Walls, Byfield, Boddington, Eydon and Woodford cum Membris.
Even so, the village continues to develop. In the 1980s parts of the railway cuttings that formed the triangular junction to the south of the village were used to create a nature reserve – the Pocket Park. In 1991 the old Serviceman’s Memorial Hall was demolished and replaced by the new building that serves the village today. In 1994 a convenience store (now the Co-op) opened on the Hinton side of the village to serve the new estates. In spite of many comings and goings, Woodford still boasts a collection of shops that is the envy of many villages.
Today, Woodford Halse has over 3500 inhabitants and while the village has extended far beyond its old centre, it still reflects its past in street names, buildings and local traditions.