Blackmoor Gate Devon England United Kingdom - Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Trust has formed a new company, L&B Blackmoor Company Plc, specifically to purchase and run The Old Station House Inn, a pub and restaurant business located in the former L&B station at Blackmoor Gate.
 
Shares will be offered to the public with the trust holding a controlling share to enable future railway use of the site.
 
The station, known simply as Blackmoor, was built in 1897 for opening of the L&B and sold in October 1938 after the railway closed.
 
Post WWII a cafe opened in the building.
 
Part of the Up platform was enclosed by a conservatory in the 1950s and the building was subsequently extended across the track bed.
 
The old station site lies on L&B's planned extension to Wistlandpound and acquisition of the property is clearly important in that it will provide another section of the required track bed.
 
However, the proposed purchase of the site envisages the new company continuing to run the existing pub and restaurant business in the old building.
 
The railway extension will be constructed at a lower level to the north of the original station.
 
Aside from not disrupting the existing business, rebuilding the railway lower down the slope is advantageous since a revived line will need to pass under the adjacent A39/A399 crossroads.
 
If the station building purchase goes through, a new station will be built at the lower level, in effect behind the pub garden.
 
This will replace earlier proposals to construct a new station north of the crossroads next to the projected locomotive and carriage sheds which L&BR aims to locate at Blackmoor Gate.
 
The planning applications covering L&B extension ambitions from its present Killington Lane temporary terminus are now ready for submission to North Devon Council and Exmoor National Park (Blackmoor Gate being on the western boundary of the National Park).
 
The two authorities are committed to ruling on the applications within six months of accepting them, although in planning terms "accepting" is not the same as receipt.
 
The applications have to be "validated" before being "accepted", and the documentation runs to 3,000 pages.
 
Following closure of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in September 1935 the track bed was sold off to numerous landowners.
 
The revival project, which presently operates between Woody Bay station and Killington Lane, and associated organizations have over many years been progressively securing parcels of old L&B track bed.
 
Last year, L&B Trust purchased Rowley Moor Farm close to Blackmoor Gate, the cost being recovered by the sale of holiday timeshares in the house.
 
The land and farm outbuildings on the north side of the A39 (just east of the A399) are adjacent to a site which was already owned by the trust and earmarked as the location for new locomotive and carriage sheds, workshops, and until the latest Old Station House Inn opportunity, a new station.
 
Closer to Killington Lane, a four-bedroom house on the edge of Parracombe known as Fair View has recently come on the market for sale.
 
Built in 1911 (after the railway was constructed) the property now includes a 260 yard section of the old track bed on the route from Killington Lane towards Blackmoor Gate.
 
L&B Trust hopes the property will be bought by someone prepared to sell them the section of track bed.
 
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