The Wagon Works

Opened: 3rd April 2009 as a JD Wtherspoons pub The name of this pub reflects Eastleigh's connection with England's railways. Eastleigh became a railway town in 1891, when the London & South Western Railway opened its carriage and wagon works, next to the station. The town grew rapidly. Expansion accelerated, after repair shops were added in 1903 and the locomotive works opened in 1910. The Eastleigh Works constructed the King Arthur 4-6-0 classes and all 16 Lord Nelson locomotives. The first of the series is now in the National Railway Museum, in York. When Eastleigh Station was built, in the early 1840s, modern Eastleigh did not exist. It was then the small rural hamlet of Barton. In 1839, the combined population of Barton and nearby Eastley was fewer than 80 people. The new station at Barton was named Bishopstoke, after the nearest village, and eventually renamed 'Eastleigh', in 1923. For more than 160 years, the pub on this site (formerly The Home Tavern) has been the first building seen by anyone arriving in Eastleigh.