Not yet a clean sweep in clearing up Broome mystery
Readers have put us on the right track after we published this photo of a religious group arriving at Broome railway station, near Craven Arms, and asked what it was all about.
It was captioned "Mormon passengers at Broome station," and while we now know where they were heading, there is not a consensus over whether they were indeed Mormons, or undenominational Christians.
Fred Bason, 84, of Clungunford, rang in to say: "They were going to a farm at Rowton, about half a mile away. They used to come every year for about a fortnight. Whether it was a religious festival or a holiday, I don't know. They used to come in the 1930s and 1940s and I think after the war.
"I knew a chap who worked there. They had to clean all the buildings out before they came and they had a large marquee in the field as well.
"They went to Mr Rollings' farm at Rowton."
Mr Bason, a semi-retired farmer, does not know what the religious link with Mr Rollings was but says: "He was a farmer and I dug potatoes for him when I was a boy at school just after the war."
Mrs Olive Fish, from Market Drayton, emailed in to say: "These people are not Mormons. They are undenominational Christians attending an annual Christian Convention held on the grounds of Rowton Manor which was owned by the Rollings family.
"The convention was held in early June each year and lasted three or four days. Upon the death of Mr and Mrs Rollings in the late 1950s Rowton Manor was eventually sold, the last convention being held there in 1960 and then it was relocated elsewhere. I remember as a child attending Rowton convention with my parents in the 1950s and was probably at the last one. This photo was taken in 1924."
She added: "I was brought up in Chirk and our family knew the Rollings family well and still do know some of them."
However Vin Wardman, of Craven Arms, said: "I'm 86 and my wife is 89, and as long as we can remember they were Mormons.
"These people were still coming here in the 1950s. We used to live in Broome and they came every year to go to Rowton Farm and stayed there a week or a fortnight."
He said the parents of his wife, Phyllis Pearce before marriage, lived in Station House at Broome.
"When we first got married we had no house and lived in their sitting room for a short while."
Mormons or not, the picture will be part of a display of Shropshire haulage firms and bus companies being held by Shrewsbury Railway Heritage Trust on August 5 at its base at Abbey Foregate station, and in advance of the event the trust had been trying to find out more about the image.
