Emma's Blog: Old railway bumblings

Ray and I have met up a couple of times recently to try and spot stretches of the former Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway. One fairly unsuccessful, back in March, and a much more successful outing last Monday (the May Day Bank Holiday).

Environs of Woodhay station, 11 March

As the level crossing at Kintbury was closed due to line works, I drove to Hungerford and met Ray in the car park there near the station. We sneaked a quick second breakfast at Eliane.

Unnecessary croissant

Ray drove us back over towards Newbury and parked at The Chase, an area of National Trust woodland south of the town near the village of Woolton Hill. I don't think I'd been to The Chase since school, when one of my O-level music teachers (can't remember whether it was Mr Gough or Mr Grant) used to regularly take us in lesson time to walk his dog. Don't suppose that sort of thing would be allowed now.

The Chase's car park is off Station Road (aha!) and Ray had already researched this as being near the site of the former Woodhay station (the name’s a bit of a mystery as it’s some way from the villages of East and West Woodhay).

Location of the former Woodhay station

The grid reference for the station given on Wikipedia shows it as being pretty much where we were looking, and the station house does still exist as a private house. The house is slightly hidden round a bend in the drive, and I did note that there’s a sign telling people to keep out (see snip below from Street View) – perhaps railway enthusiasts are given to going up the drive to have a snoop around?

Signage on the driveway of the former station house

The railway trackbed in this area has been substantially obliterated by being used for the route of the A34 Newbury bypass, and we could make out practically nothing.

Near the former Woodhay station

We walked back into The Chase and had a walk over to the side that’s closest to the A34, and did make out something that seems as though it was probably the old railway embankment.

Probable old railway embankment

Further round we followed something that we thought initially looked like railway trackbed, but ended up concluding was an old loop of road. My Newbury & Hungerford OS Explorer, which is fairly old (it marks the Newbury bypass as due to open late 1998) shows a distinct loop of road here, but Ray’s newer version did not, and Google Maps doesn’t either.

Possible old loop of road

Snip from my OS map

Snip from Google Maps, not showing the loop of road

This really old snip from the map at https://maps.nls.uk/view/97792909 does show it (this map is labelled as revised in 1938). So it looks like the loop was the original route of the road, and the road (now the A343 Andover Road) was later straightened at this point, rendering the loop redundant.

We made our way back round through the wood to the car park. Encountered some cows, which you don't expect to see in woods.

A cow near the path

A watery bit

Environs of Burghclere, 1 May

We drove to the village of Burghclere and parked just off the road by The Clere School, which was deserted as it was a Bank Holiday. At Burghclere, the old railway trackbed hasn’t been used by the Newbury bypass; instead the trunk road has been routed a little way to the west of it, probably because continuing on the trackbed would have obliterated much of Burghclere and they would also probably have had to demolish the National Trust's Sandham Memorial Chapel to do it. Whatever the reason, it made it much easier to locate the track.

From the road bridge just past Spring Lane, it’s possible to see the platform and the station house, though it would probably be clearer in winter when there’s less leaf cover. The trackbed has water in it at this point. The platform is in the garden of the station house, now a private residence, so isn’t publicly accessible.

The old railway from the Harts Lane bridge

We walked down Spring Lane and discreetly viewed the station house. Quite smart; labelled as The Old Station. Ray reckoned it’s probably been extended over the years, which concurs with this Geograph post.

I had assumed that this was Burghclere station, but a little post-walk research revealed that, confusingly, this was Highclere station, even though it’s in the village of Burghclere. There was a Burghclere station as well, but this was further south, at Old Burghclere, and according to Wikipedia was originally called Sydmonton.

The former Highclere station building

We walked on down the road and turned right onto a footpath that led towards the railway trackbed and then on across a field. Looking to your left here, it’s pretty obviously an old railway route. Looking to the right is private, though you can see a couple of derelict buildings that would have been beside the track. The Wikipedia piece says that the signal box and goods shed are still standing – maybe these are them?

Old railway buildings?

At this point, the trackbed wasn’t marked on my old map as a public footpath, so we crossed the field and then entered an area of wood marked on the map as The Alders. There’s a boardwalk through the woods at this point.

Boardwalk through woods

After the boardwalk ended we had to negotiate some muddy paths back towards an embankment, there’s a path leading up onto the disused railway line. On the ground, the track is marked as a footpath in both directions here, though it isn’t on my map. However, when we consulted Ray’s newer map after the walk, it is now shown as a public path - in fact a national trail, part of the Brenda Parker Way. No idea who Brenda Parker was, but it’s apparently a 78-mile long distance path that was opened in 2011.

We walked southeast along the trackbed for a bit, but then turned back on ourselves as we'd gone off the map and the path was getting a bit muddier.

Endpoint of the public footpath, where it meets a field and the old station premises

We made our way back up Spring Lane and then walked up Pound Lane opposite. From here, the trackbed is in a deepish cutting to the left of the road - there's no public access as far as I could see and it looked a bit boggy anyway. Pound Lane bears round to the right but there's a track that carries on - not sure if this actually leads anywhere; we didn't explore it as we were keen to get to a café for lunch at that point. But it looks from this old map (snip below) that it was a through road at one point, coming out on what's now the A339.

End of Pound Lane

We followed the road round; after going past some houses it becomes a track labelled on the map as Ox Drove (so an old cattle route?). From this we made our way round back into Burghclere.

Ox Drove

We went for lunch at the Honesty Café at the Greenham Business Park. Not long after we'd sat down, there was a torrential rain shower, which luckily had held off during our walk.