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"Broughton was more lucky in respect of transport than most of the villages. There was a railway station on the branch line of the LMS Railway, from Leicester to Rugby, which was one of the oldest in the country. It was well used in the 1920s, taking the workers to Leicester each day, and their families, usually on market days, to do their shopping in Leicester or Rugby. The village produced goods that had to be transported. There was the brickyard that made tiles for roofing and bricks for building. These has to be loaded into the railway trucks by wheeling them in a wheelbarrow into a lift which raised them to the level of the trucks, the railway track being on an embankment, and then across a bridge to the trucks which would carry them."

"The Turner and Jarvis hosiery factory was situated near to the station and their products were transported by rail. There were cattle markets at Leicester, Rugby and Ullesthorpe and during the week cattle, sheep and pigs were continually passing along the line."

"The railway banks were always interesting, being full of wild flowers. There were violets, primroses, dog daisies, colts' feet, wild strawberries and bushes of broom and gorse, making the banks things of beauty. The wild flowers are still there today but the railway runs no more, having been axed by Beecham. Then the people had to travel by omnibus and car. The cattle travelled by motor truck and the hosiery by van and lorry. The brickyard ceased to exist and became a dump for old cars, but I am glad to say that the wild life still flourishes on the banks and cuttings of the old railway, so all is not lost."

"The public roads in the early part of the century
(20th - Editor) were not designed for motor traffic. The traffic was by foot and horse. When motors began to travel on the roads, clouds of dust were raised from the unsealed surfaces of the roads. This contaminated the grass verges that became grey with fine dust. Occasionally, particularly during dry spells, a water cart would spray water through the centre of the village to lay down the dust."

"There was a road which lead around the mill that was always in poor repair, it being partly private. It was in the oldest part of the village and there were some very old houses there, made of Wattle and Daub. The private part of the road was by the mill and on Good Fridays a gate was locked across this road to preserve control of the right of way. Another neglected road was Scottage Lane. This lead from the village to the Lutterworth Turnpike, by my grandfather's farm, Cosby Lodge. In part, this road was almost a rutted road with two strips of grass where the horses walked between the wheels of the vehicles. Later the roads were named and this road was mistakenly labelled COTTAGE LANE. A footpath ran from Pegg's Bridge to Scottage Lane, through fields inhabited by corncrakes and one could hear their grating noise but never could they be seen!

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Copyright - John Peirson 2000