Quirky polling stations: Woman who lives in one votes by post

A woman whose home is a polling station has no worries about forgetting to vote in the 2024 general election.

June Thomas, 80, regularly turns her house in Winwick, Northamptonshire, into one of the UK’s quirkiest polling stations.

But Mrs Thomas will not be putting any crosses into boxes on Thursday.

She has already voted – by post.

Mrs Thomas’s house, in the Daventry constituency, has been Winwick’s polling station for more than half a century.

Voters tick their boxes in a hallway – under a floating staircase.

But Mrs Thomas, who has lived at the Old School House in Church Road for 54 years, does not wander into the hallway to vote on election day.

She walks the 300 yards to the village post box and mails her vote.

Mrs Thomas said she was given a postal vote many years ago.

She said she used to work as a polling station clerk for a local council and was given a postal vote because she struggled to get home to vote on election days.

“I know it sounds funny but I’ve just kept using my postal vote and voting by post,” she explained.

“I don’t think I’ve ever voted in my house – even though it’s the polling station.

“I’ve already voted in this election.

“I can see why people might laugh.”

Voters across the eastern region will make their choices in village halls, pubs, sports clubs and in a variety of unusual polling stations, including:

• a mobile library in a Tesco car par park in Cambridge
• the Hadleigh Old Fire Station, which now houses artists’ studios, in Hadleigh, Essex
• a portable cabin outside the Verulamium Museum, in St Albans, Hertfordshire
• a farm in Besthorpe, Norfolk
• a function room in the Cliff Hotel in Gorleston-on-Sea, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
• the Long Shop Museum in Leiston, Suffolk, which aims to preserve east Suffolk’s industrial heritage

Elsewhere, voters heading to a polling station at the clubhouse in the Castor and Ailsworth Tennis Club, in Ailsworth, near Peterborough, might get a chance to watch one of the fastest growing sports in the UK.

Club organisers say pickleball sessions are due to take place on the club’s hard court during voting hours.

Voters in Thelnetham, Suffolk, will place their cross in a village hall built in 1872.

At the 2019 elections, votes had been cast at nearby Thelnetham Windmill, which dates back to 1819, because the village hall was unavailable.

The Fields Farmshop and Cafe in East Bergholt is another unusual polling station.

Owner Abby Clayton said she would not be able to vote while working because she lived in a nearby village and would head home to make her choice.