London & North Western Railway Society
Registered Charity - No 1204954
Income and Expenditure Account for the period ended 31 December 2025
| Incoming resources Generated Funds Voluntary income Total Income(see note 3) Resources expended Charitable Activities Governance Costs Total Resources Expended(see note 4-5) Net Incoming/(outgoing) Rescources Total Funds Brought Forward Total funds carried forward Fixed Assets Tangible Assets Total fixed assets Current Assets Debtors Cash in bank and in hand Total Current Assets Current Liabilities See note 6 Net Current Assets/(liabilities) Total Assets Less Current Liabilities Net Assets Funds Of The Charity Unresticted Funds_(see note 7)_ |
2025 £13,000.15 £35,348.55 £48,348.70 £19,612.41 £39,214.14 £58,826.55 -£10,477.85 £64,579.00 £54,101.15 £73,611.81 £73,611.81 -£19,511.70 £54,100.11 £54,100.11 £54,100.11 £54,100.11 |
2024 1 £19,306.00 £82,853.00 £102,159.00 £18,138.00 £19,442.00 £37,580.00 £64,579.00 £0.00 £64,579.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £75,438.00 £75,438.00 -£10,860.00 £64,578.00 £64,578.00 £64,578.00 £64,579.00 |
|---|---|---|
Page 1
Notes to the accounts
Voluntary Income
Note 3 Analysis of Incoming Resources
| Voluntary Income Note 3 Analysis of Incoming Resources |
||
|---|---|---|
| Donations | £12,262.58 | £158.00 |
| 2025 Membership | £23,085.97 | £14,356.00 |
| 2024 Membership paid into old Charity | £9,372.00 | |
| Donations from old charity | £58,717.00 | |
| Sales2 (includes £201 not recorded 2024) | £7,221.19 | £13,230.00 |
| Sub-rentals | £4,393.81 | £5,018.00 |
| Interest | £1,385.15 | £1,057.00 |
| Computer refund | £250.00 | |
| Total | £48,348.70 | £102,159.00 |
| Note 4 Analysis of Resources Expended | ||
| Charitable Activities | ||
| Archive purchases | £3,567.14 | £3,187.00 |
| Journal | £8,586.86 | £6,771.00 |
| Newsletter3 | £1,141.65 | £2,283.00 |
| Modeller | £748.88 | £695.00 |
| Calendar | £499.20 | £481.00 |
| Production3 | £2,110.87 | £1,573.00 |
| Peripherals & Sales Postage | £496.34 | £914.00 |
| Exhibitions | £832.21 | £502.00 |
| Restoration of Carriage Painting | £0.00 | £1,733.00 |
| Third Party Publication Purchases | £1,629.26 | £0.00 |
| Total | £19,612.41 | £18,138.00 |
| Governance Costs | ||
| Rent (Kenilworth) | £4,470.04 | £6,000.00 |
| Rent (Vine Street) | £2,084.25 | £0.00 |
| Rent Deposit (Vine Street) | £3,750.00 | £0.00 |
| Rates4 | £1,226.45 | £935.00 |
| Insurance 5 | £770.31 | £1,236.00 |
| Electricity - Kenilworth | £1,794.24 | £962.00 |
| Electricity - Vine Street | - | - |
| Broadband | £354.69 | £331.00 |
| Vine Street Refurbishment & Professional fees6 | £8,572.29 | |
| Study Centre Move | £3,654.87 | £739.00 |
| Computer/laptops | £1,535.10 | |
| Journal postage | £5,767.22 | £6,063.00 |
| Photo & PDF Software | £145.00 | |
| Adobe/ NCH / Topaz labs (software) | £720.19 | £299.00 |
| AGM | £451.43 | £100.00 |
| Digital Platforms7 | £913.36 | £1,004.00 |
| Zenfolio | £172.55 | £176.00 |
| NCVO | £55.00 | |
| Zoom | £155.88 | £156.00 |
| Photocopier | £233.59 | £288.00 |
| Photocopier peripherals | £49.00 |
Page 2
| Pay Pal Costs8 | £490.87 | £270.00 |
|---|---|---|
| Membership Software(Mojo) | £175.00 | £175.00 |
| Membership costs(postage) | £441.52 | £439.00 |
| Professional Memberships9 | £591.00 | |
| Equipment Maintenance10 | £889.29 | £20.00 |
| Total | £39,214.14 | £19,442.00 |
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Note 6 Creditors
| Analysis of Creditors - Amounts falling due within one year Deferred income £19,511.70 £19,511.70 Note 7 Movement of Major Funds Fund Names Incoming Resources Outgoing Resources 2024 Retained Profits £102,159.00 -37,580.00 Total Funds £102,159.00 -37,580.00 Fund Names Incoming Resources Outgoing Resources 2025 Retained Profits £48,348.70 -£58,826.55 Total Funds £48,348.70 -£58,826.55 |
£10,860.00 £10,860.00 Gains and losses Fund Balances C/Fwd 0.00 64,579.00 0.00 64,579.00 Gains and losses Fund Balances C/Fwd -£10,477.85 £18,752.60 -£10,477.85 £18,752.60 |
|---|---|
Notes
Total of cash and bank at year end £73,611.81 Donations/Subs for 2026 £19,511.70 Fund balance c/fwd £54,100.11 One off costs Shared Refurbishment Costs -£1,792.33 L&NWRS Refurbishment -£6,779.96 Computers -£1,535.10 Moving Costs -£3,654.87 Sub-total -£13,762.26** Rent Deposit - Note this has to be added to the assets £3,750.00 Not included is the Gift Aid for 2024 (estimate) £4,500.00 Not included is the Gift Aid for 2025. (estimate) £6,500.00
MCM Notes to the accounts
Note 1 The 2024 Accounting Period = September 2023 - 31st December 2024
Note 2 2025 Lack of sales income reflects the focus on finding new premises, packing up, & no through traffic to buy LNWRS material
Note 3 Production Costs are now being aportioned to Newsletter/Journal.
Note 4 Only the rates for Kenilworth paid. Vine Street's rates demand yet to be received
Note 5 Contents Only. P Millard's Models no longer insured.
Note 6 SRS/LNWRS Shared = £1,792.23 & LNWRS Only = £6,779.96
Note 7 2025 Costs - IONOS £501.32, Flip Books £237.66 & Plugins for Website £173.38 - 2024 Costs -
IONOS £549, FlipBooks £247, + Plug Ins £208
Note 8 PayPal fees higher mainly due to the increase in number of members paying subscriptions via PayPal. Note 9 Archive West Midlands £375 (part Year), NCVO £59 x 2 Paid twice so being used for 2026. ICO £47 Info Comm Office registration
Note 10 There was a delay in paying 2024 Covergold invoice, so this is for 2024 & 2025.
Page 4
The L&NWR Society
also known as
The London & North Western Railway Society Registered Charity Number: 1204954
Trustees’ annual report for the period 1[st] January 2025 to 31st December 2025
Principal address: until 17[th] November 2025 Unit 6A Princes Drive Industrial Estate, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 2FD
Principal address from 17th November 2025, 35 Vine Street Coventry, CV1 5NH
1
Trustees who managed the charity:
Chair. John Gowers Secretary. Michael Hollick Treasurer. Michael Musson David Barrett
Murray Bartlett
Matthew Cadbury
David Bond Ian Hopkins
Peter Stanton
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Structure and governance:
The Society was founded in 1973 and has been a charity since 2005 (Reg No 1110210). The members approved a motion to apply to become a CIO at our 2023 AGM. CIO status was granted on the 27[th] . September 2023
The London & North Western Railway Society is an association of approximately 700 members.
The charity’s governing document is the Constitution as approved by the Charity Commission on 27[th] . September 2023. We are constituted as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation
The Officers and Executive Committee are appointed or reappointed in accordance with our constitution at the Annual General Meeting, normally held in May.
Vacancies for trustees are advertised in our members' newsletter, with suitable applicants being co-opted into post. Co-opted trustees stand for election at the next AGM.
All Trustees, Executive Officers, Co-ordinators and Committee members etc. give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits.
Objectives:
To advance the education of the public in all aspects of the London and North Western Railway, including the study and preservation of information, drawings, photographs, models, and other material pertaining to the railway company and related organisations and subjects.
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Meeting our charitable obligations
Our main activities are gathering, preserving and disseminating information on the London & North Western Railway, which was formed in 1846 and operated up until 1923 when it was absorbed into the London Midland & Scottish Railway. We are interested in the railway itself and in the people who worked on and around the line.
We have both an Archivist and a Staff History Officer who answer queries from the public and members of the society. We also assist members of the public researching family history. Our period of interest covers a time when almost every family would have at least one member working on the railways. Many of the official staff records were destroyed but we are working to recreate a least some of them from information from numerous sources.
We provide information and period photographs to a number of railway-related magazines and to several TV production companies. Our quarterly Journal carries well researched articles, often on subjects that might not receive attention from commercial publications.
Despite the disruption caused by the enforced relocation of our Study Centre, our volunteers were able not only to carry on with their work but also to increase productivity in some areas, notably the scanning of historic documents. This was due to an increase in members coming forward to help following appeals in our members' newsletter and fears that such activities might have to stop if we were forced to put everything into storage
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Our Study Centre was open to all on a weekly basis, and one Saturday a month up until the need to pack for the move forced restrictions on access. Throughout that period our on-line archive remained accessible. Various delays meant that the move took place at the end of November. Work to prepare the new building for regular use took up most of December, but thanks to the hard work of our volunteers we were ready for normal service by the end of 2025.
The Study Centre has an extensive library that includes both books and period publications all of which are indexed to assist those engaged in research. We are continuing with our program of digitising our collection for the benefit of future generations. All original documents are conserved and kept in suitable storage.
We are reaching out to local history groups in areas served by the LNWR, both to offer information on the railway and to gain more insights into the social history of the era. We offer talks on railway related subjects to such groups.
We are working with other archives to share information on our respective collections.
Our public website gives information on our railway, its staff and the social conditions of the time. It carries a detailed bibliography listing LNWR-related publications and a searchable index of our Society Journal going back almost twenty-five years, both invaluable aids to research.
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The Society offers our scanning and printing facilities to other organisations. This has been taken up by local history societies and some other railway related societies. Our equipment is offered as rates that reflect our costs only and therefore assist these organisations by reducing their own costs. We have also hosted delegations from other similar societies interested in our solution to providing online access to archive material. We have provided help and advice to assist them in creating their own online system.
The Society publishes books on specialist subjects; in 2025 we produced a book on the LNWR Permanent way and Estates Department. The result of years of meticulous research by our Archivist. Such a book would never be published by a commercial organisation, and we consider such work as part of out charitable commitment. We have provided complete articles on subjects related to the LNWR to specialist publications. In addition, we have assisted several publishers by providing photos and historically accurate material to enable them to complete their own articles.
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Overview of the period
The Society performed satisfactorily during this period despite the fact that we were notified of our landlord’s intention to invoke the break clause in our lease in January 2025. This was formally notified to us in March 2025 and required us to vacate the premises by early September 2025.
The premises in Kenilworth had been shared with The Signalling Record Society for many years, with that society (also a charity) having a Licence to Occupy. This arrangement allowed both societies to share the costs of the building. The building housed our very large collection of historical documents, as well as providing space for the essential work of conservation and cataloguing of our collection. Without a permanent home, we would be faced with an expensive storage bill
An emergency Trustees meeting was called immediately to discuss our options. It was felt that to continue sharing with the Signalling Record Society would be our preferred option. It was jointly agreed between the two societies that a working group be set up to lead the search for new premises. Our Chair, Secretary and Treasurer were appointed with the Signalling Record Society appointing their own representatives.
One of the main challenges was that the Kenilworth premises were let to us at considerably under the market rate, which meant that any new premises would almost inevitably cost both societies considerably more. The trustees decided that this was a very serious situation and justified the use of some of our reserve funds to cover the increased costs. These reserves had been built up in the knowledge that we might find ourselves in exactly this position.
7
We were faced with two options: find new premises or put everything into secure storage. The storage option would mean that most of our work on our archives would stop and access to our archive material would be seriously restricted. Initial enquiries showed that the secure storage option was as expensive as new premises.
A lot of work was put into trying to find suitable premises, and by late Spring 2025, we thought we had a solution. Unfortunately, the offer was withdrawn at the last moment, and we were back to square one. In July 2025, we found what appeared to be a suitable building in Coventry. It was owned by the City Council and they had specified that they would prefer a community-based or charitable tenant. We were required to submit a justification for our Society taking the lease. There followed weeks of negotiations that took us beyond the end of our lease. Thankfully, our landlord was understanding and let us stay on until after we had taken possession of the new building.
A good deal of time and effort went into preparing the new premises for our use. And in organising a program of stage moving. Thankfully, an appeal to our members produced sufficient funds to pay the not inconsiderable costs of the move.
We have a five-year lease on the new building which fits with our plans to have our entire collection digitised within that time frame. We can then reassess our needs as regards storage and working space towards the end of this period.
8
We continued to reach out to the public at several railwayrelated exhibitions throughout the year. Our Society stands spread awareness and knowledge both of the LNWR and the Society in addition to raising funds and recruiting new members.
We are also developing a range of talks on LNWR related topics that can be used by our members to give illustrated talks to local groups around the country.
Our archives team are working with a number of County Archives to our mutual benefit.
Our changes to the Society’s management structure, brought in during the previous year, were monitored and generally found to be working satisfactorily. More members, with suitable skills, were brought in to be part of our subcommittees.
Our society attracted more new members than we lost during the period covered by this report. (losses were mainly through age and infirmity) This is important because our membership subscriptions are our main income source and allow us to fund our charitable activities.
9
Finances
The Society’s finances remain in good order. Our main income is from membership subscriptions, with sales of Society publications and donated items helping to make up the gap between income and expenditure.
The forced move of premises did, of course, have an impact on our finances. This was mitigated by an increase in donations following an appeal to our members.
Our normal expenditure consists of funding our regular quarterly publications with our Journal being a vehicle for disseminating information through well researched articles. This allows us to publish articles of historical interest that are unlikely to appear in a commercial publication. We fund our Study Centre where the important work of conserving, cataloguing, digitising & storing historical documents goes on. We also use our funds to acquire historical documents which are then scanned to be made available to members and researchers.
Reserves
While none of our funds was specifically reserved during this period, the lease on our Study Centre being subject to a break clause led to the decision, early in the year, to allocate up to £6,000 per year from our reserves, over the five-year term of the new lease, towards the expected increase in rent. In the event, mainly due to generous donations, we were able to proceed with the Society remaining on sound financial footing.
This Report signed by the Chair on 22[nd] . May 2026
Approved by the trustees on 26[th] . May 2026
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