Part of a former railway station building at Clare Castle Country Park will open as a café this week as plans to rejuvenate the park continue to gather steam.
The new Platform One Café opens on Friday and can be found in the original 1865 bookings hall of the Victorian railway station.
“We are very excited to have the opportunity to create a new café in our beautiful park and know that local families and visitors to Clare will enjoy the new facilities,” said business owner Richard Palmer.
“We aim to meet the needs of all our diners and will offer a range of vegetarian dishes alongside light lunches and snacks, including home-made soups, quiches and tarts.”
The café will be open seven days a week from 8.30am-5pm.
The building is Grade-II-listed and has been refurbished to provide seating for about 25 customers inside as well as a takeaway facility from the north platform.
Mr Palmer owns Number One Deli and Café on Clare’s high street and now owns the Platform One Café, on which he has worked in partnership with the Clare Castle Country Park Trust to bring it back to life.
The new building is easily accessible with a ramp entrance at the front and outdoor seating available under the original glass veranda.
For customers looking for a takeaway, there will be an entrance via a door on the north platform, plus a takeaway window.
The building’s new furnishings aim to reflect its history and there are plans to gather more railway artefacts to be displayed at the café so its heritage is not forgotten.
Thousands of people visit the park each year and while there are plenty of cafés nearby in the town centre, there has not been a fixed café in the park itself until now.
Platform One Café will also welcome well-behaved dogs and there will be bike racks as well for cyclists.
On Saturday, the opening of the café will be celebrated with a re-enactment of David Lean’s iconic black-and-white film Brief Encounter from the 1940s, which tells the tale of two strangers who meet on a railway platform and start to develop the beginnings of a relationship.
Clare’s railway station closed in the 1960s and what remains of it is now part of the Clare Castle Country Park.
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