Welsh Journals

The proposed railway was to branch off the important Hereford- Shrewsbury line at Leominster and take a route near to Kingsland and Pembridge for Kington. Opposition to such a railway seems difficult to understand from the man who had in 1845 so favoured the Welsh Midland railway to Kington and on to the Cambrian coast. It could hardly have been on the grounds that it was to come too close to Moorcourt since the nearest approach was some 11/4 miles to the north of the house. The trouble was the old Tramroad from Kington to the Burlingjobb lime quarries which would lose its viability when the new steam railway arrived, and most of the shares in the old railway were held by James Davies and his relations. However, the Skarratt diary for 18th May 1854 tells us that on the day appointed for the Kington Railway scheme to come before the Parliamentary Committee, Messrs Meredith (ironmonger), Turner (The Mill) and Jones (Downton) attended for the promoters and Mr Banks (Solicitors, Kington) on behalf of the opposers, Davies and Co. The diary for 25th May records, "Per Electric Telegraph and Messenger from Leominster news arrived that the opposition had been beaten and the Bill had passed the Committee another victory having been achieved of the great Messrs Davies, Banks and Co." Eventually, on 30th November 1854 the first sod of the new railway having been cut by Lady Bateman of Shobdon whose husband was one of the chief proposers, there followed for such an event the usual rejoicings into the early hours. Mr Richard Parry, 1800-1867, had published his History of Kington in 1845, but in his Mss copy-now in the Pilley Collection of the Hereford City Library-there are 'a few things not in the printed copy', and added between 1854 and 1857 in the August of which latter year the new railway was in full use were the sentences, 'He (i.e. James Davies) died very unpopular in consequence of his opposition to the Leominster & Kington railway now in course of construction". Parry had then copied out in full the complimentary words about Mr Davies as a public and private person printed in the Hereford Times at the time of his death in 1856, followed by the remark, "It will be for the reader to form his own opinion as the correctness of the said observations." Parry did have the grace to add that over 150 persons were present at the service in Lyonshall churchyard when James Davies was buried in a vault next to his wife, Marianne, showing that 'he was mourned by the residents of a whole district'. In 1858 a memorial was erected inside Lyonshall church in the form of a marble monument 'from the chisel of Mr Jennings of Hereford'. The inscription is quoted here is full not only because it epitomises the life, character and achievements of the Squire of Moorcourt but also because it is couched in polished English, rarely used today. "Sacred to the memory of James Davies, Esq., of Moorcourt in the county of Hereford, second son of William Davies late of Bronllys Castle in the county of Brecon, Esq., who was born on the 3rd of August 1777, and married in 1804 Marianne, youngest daughter of John Lewis, Esq., of Harpton Court, Radnorshire. He was the senior partner of the Kington and Radnorshire Bank which he established in 1808, and for many years an active Magistrate for the