Mayflower Mews sits on land north of Springfield Road in Grantham, between the railway bridge and Huntingtower Road. The street is named after Mayflower, a steam engine with a notable history in British rail transport.
The steam engine
Mayflower was built in 1948 at the North British Locomotive Company to Edward Thompson's B1 design. Constructed as a 4-6-0 engine, she spent her working life hauling mixed traffic trains across British Railways' Eastern, North Eastern and Scottish Regions.
The engine was bought for preservation in 1967, when she was renumbered 61306 and given the name Mayflower, which she has kept since. In 2019 she came out of a lengthy overhaul certified to run on the mainline again — a certificate she still holds today.
The site's industrial past
Before Mayflower Mews was built, the land was part of the railway sheds. It originally held a turntable, then a roundabout once engines grew too big for the turntable, along with a coal loading tower. Steam operations came to an end here in the 1960s.
A can-making factory then took over the site. Bovis later built the Mallard Quarter estate on the land, with Mayflower Mews keeping up the railway theme that runs through the estate's street names.
