The Lord of the Manor Sir Willoughby Jones ordered the tree removed and, with much local mourning, the remains taken carted to Cranmer Hall at Fakenham.
The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway ran through the parish, part of a line that linked Great Yarmouth to Sutton Bridge via Stalham, North Walsham, Aylsham, Melton Constable, Fakenham and King's Lynn.
A driving force behind the building of the Lynn & Fakenham railway line was the Reverend Joseph Lloyd Brereton of Little Massingham.
Both the Lynn & Fakenham and the Yarmouth & North Norfolk lines were built by Messrs Wilkinson & Jarvis of London who had raised the necessary funds through a mixture of bonds, debentures and mortgages, hoping that their speculative investment would pay off when a larger railway company would purchase the line.
The line from Fakenham to Melton Constable was part of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway's main line from Peterborough to Great Yarmouth.
The Norfolk Orbital Railway is a proposal to link the Mid-Norfolk Railway and the North Norfolk Railway to create a line running from Sheringham to Wymondham, restoring regular services to Fakenham and Melton Constable.
The station lay approximately half a mile from the small hamlets of Tatterford and Helhoughton but took its name from the Raynham Hall residence of Lord Townshend, erstwhile chairman of the Lynn & Fakenham Railway, some 1.5 miles away.
Goods traffic continued after the passenger closure, with public delivery sidings remaining at Dereham and Fakenham and private sidings at North Elmham and Great Ryburgh.