Lodge Hill railway station

Lodge Hill railway station was a station on the Bristol and Exeter Railway's Cheddar Valley line in Somerset from 1870 until 1963. The station served the village of Westbury-sub-Mendip, but was not named Westbury because of the potential for confusion with Westbury, Wiltshire.

Lodge Hill
Location
PlaceWestbury-sub-Mendip
Coordinates51.2330°N 2.7195°W / 51.2330; -2.7195 (Lodge Hill railway station)
Operations
Original companyBristol and Exeter Railway
Pre-groupingGreat Western Railway
Post-groupingGreat Western Railway
History
5 April 1870Opened
9 September 1963Closed[1]
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain
A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z

History

The station was opened with the extension of the broad gauge line from Cheddar to Wells in April 1870, converted to standard gauge in the mid-1870s and then linked up to the East Somerset Railway to provide through services from Yatton to Witham in 1878. All the railways involved were absorbed into the Great Western Railway in the 1870s.

The station was host to a GWR camp coach from 1938 to 1939.[2] A camping coach was also positioned here by the Western Region in 1952.[3]

The Yatton to Witham line closed to passengers in 1963, though goods traffic passed through to Cheddar until 1969.

Preceding station   Disused railways   Following station
Draycott
Line and station closed		   Cheddar Valley Railway
Great Western Railway		   Wookey
Line and station closed

After closure

For a period Bristol Grammar School used the station buildings as an activity centre,[4] but it was later demolished to make way for housing. Stone from the building was used in the construction of buildings at Cranmore on the preserved East Somerset Railway.

Until 2002, the former track bed at the station was used as an airfield for light aircraft.

gollark: I mean, the UK initially went for an "ignore it and hope it goes away" sort of approach based on flawed modelling for flu, but then changed their strategy to the lockdown/social distancing one when updated models suggested this was a bad idea.
gollark: Like what? I'm pretty sure there has been thought about this.
gollark: What would you prefer, *no* lockdown (or much less of one) and significantly higher infection (and then death) rates?
gollark: Did you not read anything people said?
gollark: This is obviously not correcting for age and stuff, but still.

References
  1. Butt, R.V.J., (1995) The Directory of Railway Stations, Yeovil: Patrick Stephens
  2. McRae, Andrew (1997). British Railway Camping Coach Holidays: The 1930s & British Railways (London Midland Region). Scenes from the Past: 30 (Part One). Foxline. p. 31. ISBN 1-870119-48-7.
  3. McRae, Andrew (1998). British Railways Camping Coach Holidays: A Tour of Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Scenes from the Past: 30 (Part Two). Foxline. p. 95. ISBN 1-870119-53-3.
  4. David J. Boardman (July 1969). "The Place of the School Field Centre in the Teaching of Geography". Geography. 54 (3): 319–324. JSTOR 40566845.

Further reading
  • Oakley, Mike (October 2002). Somerset Railway Stations. Wimborne: Dovecote Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-904349-09-9.
  • Historic railway sign is on track for museum arrival, Bristol Evening Post, 19 December 2006


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.