Ayton Castle will be familiar to those travelling on the ECML north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The current building is the third castle on the site. Following destruction by fire of the second in 1836, William Mitchell, a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland, commissioned the architect James Gillespie Graham to create the Scottish Baronial building in 1846. After it had been in the hands of the same family for over 100 years, Brian Parsons and Richard Syeed purchased the castle in 2014. It sits in 160 acres of beautiful grounds. They set out to return it to its former glory, although only use it themselves for family holidays. As a very local member, I organised an embarrassingly oversubscribed visit by the Berwickshire Naturalists' (note spelling carefully!) Club in 2018, when they had restored two of the public rooms.

They commissioned Alan Keef to build a 450yd long, 10¼" gauge quality miniature railway, running through protected woodland. Opened to the public on Fri 26 Nov 2021, it connects a large car park used for events and open days with the castle itself. The number of public running days has declined year by year to just two weekends in 2025. The Castle is now on the market, a snip at £3.25M, and the future of the railway is in doubt. Clearly a Society visit was urgently required. Living only 20 minutes from Ayton and rather isolated from most Society activities, I couldn't resist this one. Interestingly, our party was told that 15 lots of people had looked round the Castle and only one said that they definitely wouldn't want the railway. One couple flew over from the USA especially to see the Castle and its equine facilities.

The sales brochure - photos (including the railway) plans etc - is on our website Archive put 'Ayton Castle' in the top right search box. https://youtu.be/Mh9Vc6G00_4 is a video of the railway (11 mins) - no adverts.

http://www.minorrailways.co.uk/trackplans/aytoncastle.pdf is the trackplan, thanks to Peter Scott.

Seven members, including the Fixtures Secretary, Membership Secretary, General Secretary and Editor met at the Loco cum Carriage cum Works Shed and were immediately impressed by the quality of the rolling stock, the permanent way and indeed the shed itself. Our train crew and P'way team for the day were led by the very amenable Factor (property manager in Scotland), clearly a keen railway enthusiast himself, assisted by a group of his young groundsmen. On the drive from Malvern (316 miles), your Editor commented that there is always a risk on a railway with just one loco that it might not start or have problems - and so it was… The visit was off to a slightly shaky start due to a flat battery on the loco. Ironically, only the day before, it had started first time and ran perfectly for 90 minutes on a test run.

Our tea break was brought forward while charging took place. We adjourned to the Castle (servants' entrance of course) and enjoyed tea out of teapots, filter coffee and Grade 'A' biscuits. Various railway artefacts and historical pictures of the Castle were on show in the 'staff room'. Back at the shed, after advice over the phone and a couple of coughs, the loco started. We boarded on the longer shed road and ran out onto the running line which immediately started to steeply climb. The weather had been quite dreich earlier in the day (but was fine now) and the rails were still very greasy. Added to this and, mitigated to a degree by the P'way leaf blower, we were in woodland. Not only that but the track had to snake its way between protected trees as a condition of the planning permission. So, we shuddered to a stop half way up the slope. Reversing in the station, two more attempts both ended in failure.

The young P'way crew were sent to find sand. Our driver announced that this would be the last attempt and we then breasted the summit in style. After a brief stop for photos on the return loop at Castle View Halt, which also offered a view of the ECML, we returned to Eyemouth Road terminal station. The loco was turned on the end of line turntable and ran round the two coaches via the station loop. We then made a non-stop run round the main line again with nary a glitch. It was now time to max the track coverage. With the loco at the Castle end, the train was propelled through the platform so that the rear vehicle trailing bogie (with the really keen members over it) ran onto the turntable. This took place twice, once via the platform road, then by the loop with overlap. Our train ran out past the entrance to the shed and reversed over the weighted switch into the dead-end track in the shed. The solitary P'way truck occupied the last couple of metres something to come back for!












We then pulled forward while the electrically operated rear shed door was opened. Having run back into the shed, most of the train emerged into the open air and reached the buffers stops of the rarely used stock loading / unloading section. Mission accomplished!



Five participants had to be at Pant next morning for our Brecon Mountain Railtour, 400 miles away, so after profuse thanks had been offered to our hosts, the party dispersed quickly, travel arrangements being complicated by closure of the ECML around Darlington. We couldn't have asked for a more friendly reception; nothing was too much trouble. Let's hope the railway continues to operate. Finally, special mention of a member who came by train via Reston station and cycled 3½ miles to / from the Castle.