Stratford has wisely invested its tourist wealth to include many facilities that benefit locals as well as tourists, and at this time of year, on a gloomy Sunday morning, a surprising number of people were out and about along the river side, walking or cycling the Greenway, even kayaking over the weir by Holy Trinity Church. We had chosen a three mile walk from the Greenway carpark to the town, visiting the Tramway Bridge, then taking the Tramway Walk south, then back to the starting point for hot chocolates in a BR Mark I coach converted into a café.

The route takes in bits of both the Stratford and Midland Joint Railway (S&MJR) and the Stratford and Moreton Tramway (S&MT).

The car park at the northern end of the Greenway explains the history of the immediate area, which was the junction and crossing point for the GWR and S&MJR routes. An excellent map is included which over the years has amazing escaped any graffiti!

This includes a surprisingly detailed map of the Stratford Old Town station and shed complex, the subject of my previous posting. No need to design the layout from scratch, it is here!

The Greenway follows about 4 miles of the old GWR trackbed from Stratford to Cheltenham, part of which has been preserved at the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway. In theory the G&WR could claim back the track from their current target of Broadway all the way to Stratford. All it needs is money and a lot of courage to face off Sustrans who have taken over the Greenway for walkers and cyclists. Instead of following the GWR we headed east on the trackbed of a 1960s connection from the East to the South. This was for a short lived boom in iron ore shipments from Northamptonshire to South Wales and was the last gasp for the S&MJR.

The first evidence of the S&MJR comes as a short piece of track and a buffer stop:

This is a sort of memorial to the fact that the Stratford Relief Road (it is not exactly a true bypass) uses the old S&MJR land and is roughly located where the engine shed (21D) used to be.

Further evidence of the Stratford Old Town station is visible on the north side of the road where the Up Platform edge remains, almost hidden in the undergrowth. You can see it in the first of the two buffer stop photos.

The path next arrives at the River Avon where the S&MJR railway bridge was re-used as the foundation for the Relief Road:

The parts retained are clearly visible as the foundations for the newer concrete arches. This is a wonderful example of how even impecunious Victorian railway companies could build structures that have lasted the test of time.

We next joined the many throngs out for a pre-lunch Sunday walk along the riverside park until we reached the Tramway Bridge:

This photo was taken from the town side of the river, so the original tramway would have started on the left and then crossed the river, heading for Moreton (and the branch to Shipston).

Nearby there is the preserved wagon and piece of track from the S&MT:

Included is a fine memorial to William James, the entrepreneur who had the vision of building a steam railway from Stratford Canal Wharf to Oxford. This forward thinking man was not able to convince the establishment that his steam railway would be safe, so it ended up being horse drawn and he in debtor's prison.

A cartoon of the Tramway is also at this site:

The map shows not only the principal wharfs served (platforms were not called that at the time) but also the part that later became the Moreton to Shipston steam light railway.

We recrossed the Tramway Bridge and walked along the preserved embankment down towards the original crossing of the Tramway over the S&MJR.

This location is now a roundabout with very little evidence of the bridges that once existed. And so, back to the Greenway for hot chocolate!