Highworth Branch

[KeithMacdonald]

Here's something I promised @CME and Bottlewasher - a topic for the Highworth Branch, as we both have family connections.

 

The Highworth branch line opened as a passenger service in May 1883.

 

 

Ref:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=51.59858&lon=-1.75145&layers=11&b=1

 

It was only five miles long, starting in Swindon, with stations at Stratton, Stanton Fitzwarren, Swanborough (Hannington) and terminating in Highworth.

 

Although not successful as a passenger route, as a goods line it did serve many factories, industrial sites and quite a few MOD facilities in the area, and might yet produce a few mixed passenger & goods locations worthy of modelling?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by KeithMacdonald

[KeithMacdonald]

The starting point in Swindon is not very noteworthy or glamorous, lost as it is amongst all the main lines and the railway works. As a small and relatively unimportant service, would the passenger trains have been relegated to the "outside" platforms? i.e. the most northerly & southernly as we look at this 1950s map. Or would they have used the two small bay platforms? (right of centre).

 

[KeithMacdonald]

Just a mile from Swindon Station is Highworth Junction, where our branch line branches off.

Within 1/2 a mile of that, a rabbit warren of sidings either side serving various "works" and "depots".

 

 

This 1950's 1:25,000 OS map doesn't describe them very well.

 

The biggest "works" was also known as the "filling station", or "a facility for manufacturing ammonium nitrate for artillery shells in the Great War".

 

Grace's Guide to H. M. Explosive Factories describes it thus:
 

Quote

 

Swindon - "Stratton Works"

Construction started: Early 1917. Opened: October 1917. Area: 67 acres, factory area 340,087 sq ft. Management: Factories Branch of Explosives Supply Department. Munitions: ammonium nitrate.

 

 

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/H._M._Explosive_Factories

 

 

[CME and Bottlewasher]

5 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

The starting point in Swindon is not very noteworthy or glamorous, lost as it is amongst all the main lines and the railway works. As a small and relatively unimportant service, would the passenger trains have been relegated to the "outside" platforms? i.e. the most northerly & southernly as we look at this 1950s map. Or would they have used the two small bay platforms? (right of centre).

 

Platform 1 iirc.

 

Funnily enough, I oversaw some track works on this area (in the area of Coopers and Pressed Steel) of the 'Highworth Branch' in the mid 1990s. Underground streams, subsidence, and loco derailments triggered some track renewals etc. albeit reclaimed and reallocated materials.

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by CME and Bottlewasher

[KeithMacdonald]

First station on the branch?

Stratton.

About as basic as you can get for a small passing loop and one small goods siding. Did it even have a goods shed?

 

[KeithMacdonald]

With no sign of a signal box, was it part of the Station Master's duties to operate some ground-frame points?

[KeithMacdonald]

Next, we have a twig. Well, what else should we call a branch on a branch line? Or no-one twigged what it was for (huh, huh).

 

 

Even on the 1950's OS map, the South Marsden siding went nowhere. No sign at all of the Vickers-Armstrong factory and airstrip. Wos'appnin?

 

To understand what was going on, we must turn to the Supermarine Rugby Football Club.
 

Quote

 

By 1938, with war seemingly inevitable, South Marston was chosen as a shadow site because of its good communication links, but mostly because it was so close to the large skilled workforce of Swindon's huge GWR factory. With the first planes to be built at South Marston due to be made from wood, the skills of craftsmen from the carriage and wagon shops were to prove vital.

South Marston was to shadow the Phillips and Powis Aircraft Ltd factory at Woodley, near Reading, and by 1940 some of the production of a training plane called the Miles Master was transferred to the new South Marston site.

https://supermarinerfc.rfu.club/information/the-history-of-supermarine

 

 

 

But why's it called Supermarine? (I hear you ask).

 

Quote

Demand for the new generation of Spitfires - the Mark 21 - became so great that South Marston turned all its production facilities over to these most famous of fighters and became the shadow factory of the famous Castle Bromwich site in the Midlands and the original Supermarine factory in Southampton (which was extensively damaged by bombing in 1940)

 

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

Oh, and by the way...

 

Quote

Take-off and landing facilities were also needed for the four-engined Stirling so two 1,000-yard concrete runways were constructed close to the FS2 site. These were painted with woodchips dipped in camouflage paint while sections of hedges were also put together to be spread across the runway when not in use to complete the deception.

 

It was a secret site. Don't tell anyone!

[KeithMacdonald]

At this point, @CME and Bottlewasher and I might have to disclose our family connections.

 

I'll go first.

 

In 1940, my dear old Dad had just been posted to South Marston, as one of the crew on the four AA guns deployed around the sight. He had been sent there from Headingly Cricket Ground, his first posting, along with the rest of his AA gun crew.  He never could explain why they were defending a cricket ground in Yorkshire, perhaps Bletchley Park had made an early breakthrough in German strategic aims?

 

Anyway, one of the Very Strictist Rules was that you never-ever left a live shell in the breach of the AA guns.

 

Except it was the first rule that was ignored by everybody, when seconds counted in responding to an incoming flight of unwelcome visitors. All was fine until the time that one of his mates pulled the tarpaulin off the gun and somehow caught the firing mechanism. BIG BANG when nobody was expecting any bangs. How he never got court-martialled is a mystery.

 

My Dad and his patriotic guncrew made frequent trips on the Highworth train. Most often to Stratton, to help in the quality control of the products produced by Arkell's Brewery.

 

 

[Miss Prism]

52 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Stratton. Did it even have a goods shed?

 

Yes, although not one that covered a track. An old box van served as another shed. The yard was busy, with a substantial crane. I'm not sure what the function of the peculiar-shaped building in the right background was - looks like some sort of hopper?

[DLT]

40 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Even on the 1950's OS map, the South Marsden siding went nowhere. No sign at all of the Vickers-Armstrong factory and airstrip. Wos'appnin?

 

Military establishments like that were often left blank on maps.

Thanks for the thread, Highworth branch is a favourite.

[Miss Prism]

Some more maps, showing detail of the nitrate works and the Vickers branch.

[KeithMacdonald]

Next stop, Stanton Station.

 

I wonder how many passengers got off thinking the guard had said "Stratton"?

 

No passing loop here, just two goods sidings.  One for coal and one for local freight?

 

Pictures of the station on Page 2 here

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/

 

Just visible in the background is a loading gauge.

 

 

 

[Gordon A]

A good collection of photographs.

[KeithMacdonald]

Continuing north, next is Hannington Station. Even though the village of Hannington is at least a mile to the north.

 

Highworth Historical Society has a nice pic of the view from the road bridge. Showing the one siding with a couple of low-sided wagons, and the passing loop.

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/page/2#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/1033

 

 

 

This picture ...

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/639

.. must have been on a busy day!

 

Looks like eight coaches in the station, the two low-sided wagons in the siding, and one wagon in the passing loop. A nice touch is the collection of milk churns in the foreground.

[t-b-g]

Several years ago, unplanned, with limited time, I found myself passing Station Road in Highworth. I drove down for a look around but couldn't see any obvious clues as to where the station was.

 

It is a line that has fascinated me for ages and if I was modelling the GWR a layout would undoubtedly have been produced. As it is, I may still nick the track plan for a GCR fictitious layout as I think it is just about ideal for a basic terminus. Only 4 points but with sidings going both ways, shunting can be most interesting.

 

Thanks for posting and for the link to the photos, which are a super resource.

[CME and Bottlewasher]

14 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

At this point, @CME and Bottlewasher and I might have to disclose our family connections.

 

I'll go first.

 

In 1940, my dear old Dad had just been posted to South Marston, as one of the crew on the four AA guns deployed around the sight. He had been sent there from Headingly Cricket Ground, his first posting, along with the rest of his AA gun crew.  He never could explain why they were defending a cricket ground in Yorkshire, perhaps Bletchley Park had made an early breakthrough in German strategic aims?

 

Anyway, one of the Very Strictist Rules was that you never-ever left a live shell in the breach of the AA guns.

 

Except it was the first rule that was ignored by everybody, when seconds counted in responding to an incoming flight of unwelcome visitors. All was fine until the time that one of his mates pulled the tarpaulin off the gun and somehow caught the firing mechanism. BIG BANG when nobody was expecting any bangs. How he never got court-martialled is a mystery.

 

My Dad and his patriotic guncrew made frequent trips on the Highworth train. Most often to Stratton, to help in the quality control of the products produced by Arkell's Brewery.

 

 

Fascinating story - in some ways better times? At least one knew who the enemy back then.

As I think you already know Keith, my grandad was RA, a professional soldier, from the age of 14/15. He later served in the BEF in WWII fighting off Waffen SS in the fields around Dunkirk - the Waffen SS were known for breaking the Geneva Convention in that battle, grouping together prisoners locking them in barns then throwing in stick grenades.

 

Grandad was injured in that battle but - after a long tale of woe - he made it home. He was later deployed on AAA units during the Blitz in/around London.

 

All of my uncles and my father were military through choice or national service, two of whom were 'under water knife fighters' (early incarnations of SBS). My dad had fond associations with, post war, the airfields at South Marston and Draycott. And indeed the Highworth and M&SWJR branches - especially when dad worked for an agricultural engineering company in Highworth and prior for, iirc, COOP farms in the Cricklade area.

 

Happier, more straightforward times.

Edited May 25, 2021 by CME and Bottlewasher

[CME and Bottlewasher]

On 25/05/2021 at 12:51, KeithMacdonald said:

Continuing north, next is Hannington Station. Even though the village of Hannington is at least a mile to the north.

 

Highworth Historical Society has a nice pic of the view from the road bridge. Showing the one siding with a couple of low-sided wagons, and the passing loop.

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/page/2#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/1033

 

 

 

This picture ...

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/639

.. must have been on a busy day!

 

Looks like eight coaches in the station, the two low-sided wagons in the siding, and one wagon in the passing loop. A nice touch is the collection of milk churns in the foreground.

My friends and I played a lot around those areas as kids, including, 'Black Bridge' some coming from Highworth and some from Hannington/Hampton. We also rode scramblers around there too.

 

I was only telling someone the other day how my friends and I played 'commandoes' aping our uncles', father's, grandfather's escapades (and as it later turned out special forces in the locale) in - unbeknownst to us then - in the same fields as those in 'The Last Ditch' their training grounds and the last ditch. Iirc Cpt Peter Fleming (Ian Fleming's brother - Ian being buried a few short miles away at Sevenhampton) led training. After the need had passed many concerned with the LD went on to form the SAS. As kids we often found old grenades, bren guns etc. All rusted up, except one bren that was still in greased paper in a barn (we weren't allowed to keep that one!). Our schools were no strangers to bomb disposal et al.  

 

The local village was home to that charming gentleman and all round lovely fellow, George Martin (the 5th Beatle). 

 

Iirc the local manor house burned down just after the second world war - conveniently? Also iirc the only wall left standing had the skeleton of a bricked up cat in it.

 

I've seen some interesting military activity in and around the area, hidden in plain site, farms that weren't farms etc. Up until the early 1990s.

 

Also the late Rev Awdry had fellowship with the area and indeed has family there too. I was lucky enough - with an old school friend, Alistair - to win joint first prize in a model making competition (circa 1980/81), Alistair had to go home early so the prize was presented to me by the late Rev Awdry. We'd made a model from card and balsa of a, nominally, 16mm scale loco, engine shed scene. Christopher Awdry has visited our H&BLR during a charity do and I was honoured to meet Colin Maggs there too. One of our dear friends, an honourable fellow, in every sense, is friends with Mr Maggs et al (as we're various fellows/friends with Rev Awdry in the early 1980s) and indeed with some of my old railway friends and colleagues - it's a small world and a tightly knit fraternity, the WR and ex GWR family. I count myself lucky to have been welcomed with open arms. Charity often being a cornstone of all of our beliefs and deeds. It's been a privilege to have the H&BLR as a vehicle for such, it had a life of its own too, being a real outdoor railway in miniature.

 

On 25/05/2021 at 13:27, t-b-g said:

Several years ago, unplanned, with limited time, I found myself passing Station Road in Highworth. I drove down for a look around but couldn't see any obvious clues as to where the station was.

 

It is a line that has fascinated me for ages and if I was modelling the GWR a layout would undoubtedly have been produced. As it is, I may still nick the track plan for a GCR fictitious layout as I think it is just about ideal for a basic terminus. Only 4 points but with sidings going both ways, shunting can be most interesting.

 

Thanks for posting and for the link to the photos, which are a super resource.

It is hard to see where the station was - the station was actually where the new (now almost ancient) Windrush housing estate is. Station road had old rails used as fencing just above the council OAP bungalows to the right - not sure if that's still there, I haven't been along that road for years. My uncle lives on the edge of Station road, there used to be a small market garden there - Archers iirc.

 

The Highworth branch is a charming line, it was iirc, modelled in S7 - with an article MRJ and mentioned in certain Wild Swan publications. Also a very nice model - I played a very small part in such - was built by the fellows of the railway modelling section of Highworth Model Club, to OO standards.

 

I well remember one of the crossing gates on the 'Blunsdon Road' going to Pendon. The other stayed for years - I always kidded myself I'd buy it and restore it when I had a big enough garden - then it disappeared. I kick myself now, because it could have been stored in my friend's small yard. My only hope? That it went to a good home and didn't get cut up!

 

It's only when older does one value such things, youth, often, being wasted on the young?

Edited October 7, 2022 by CME and Bottlewasher
typo and additional info

[Pacific231G]

Thanks for this Keith. The Highworth Historical Society gallery is excellent . 

The loop at Hannington would have been a goods rather than a passing loop. According to Clark*, the entire branch was operated single engine in steam with a staff until June 1941 when an electric token was used between the junction and Highworth. There was an intermediate token pillar at Kingsdown Road, presumably to enable goods workings into the Vickers works. Eight months later in February 1942 Kingsdown Road got a signalbox with token instruments I'd guess when the passenger terminus for Vickers was opened.  

Maps  show the Vickers branch ending at the A361  with a single platform and two loops but the arch on the other side of the A361 on the 1 inch map tells a different story.   Unfortunately, but perhaps deliberately, the photo of the Vickers terminus in the Historical Society gallery doesn't show the extreme end of it** . 

 

I'm wondering why Hannington and Stratton had goods loops but Stanton didn't despite having two goods sidings. The loops would have allowed the yards to be worked in both directions so wagons wouldn't have had to be taken to Highworth, where there were no other sidings, and back. Also, I've seen a photo with what looks like four or five non passenger coaching stock vans (Siphon Gs perhaps) parked on the loop at Hannington and with a lot of milk churns on the station platform and beside the loop. Perhaps the transport of milk is the clue

 

One of the photos  of Highworth indicates how shunting  was really carried out at country stations as you can see the hay burning tractor. 

 

Highworth itself looks as if it was designed as a through station but, unlike Fairford,  that doesn't mean it was.  If  there had been thoughts of going further then Lechlade, just  four miles on,  would have been the obvious target and the orientation of Highworth station is certainly pointing that way. 

In reaiity of course, the East Gloucestershire Railway to Fairford got to Lechlade (or at least to a kilometre north of the town)  from Witney in 1873 ten years before the Highworth branch opened but that was at least an hour from Oxford. Had the EGR's promoters known that their trains would never get to Cheltenham would they have ever built their straggling 22 mile line just to a couple of small towns. 

A much shorter nine mile long branch from Swindon might have better suited the good citizens of Lechlade and offers the possibility of a  riverside GWR terminus in a similar style to Highworth but probably a bit larger and with a loco shed.  

 

*An Historical  Survey of Selected Great Western Stations vol 1 by R.H.Clark (OPC) 

 

** If you look at the area at the end of the Vickers "twig" now from an aerial image (If you use the National library of Scotland map site you can overlay historic  maps and a modern aerial shot which is great for  finding bits of old railway lines) the 1600-1700 m long runway running roughly north-south can be seen very clearly and its northern end was a little south of where the railway would have entered the factory site.  This is now the large Honda car  factory and the runway is used for parking and, at its southern end,  for a  vehicle test track- presumably used for checking cars coming off the assembly line. You can also see part of what was a shorter ~1000m long runway running East West and crossing the longer runway. The factory was used for jets in the 1950s so I assume the original N-S runway was lengthened from its original 900-1000m and there is concrete at what I assume was its original southern end suggesting a turning space for aircraft backtracking to lline up for take off. There's another circular area that looks like it might have been a compass base used for the. It's interesting that operational  RAF airfields for transport and bomber aircraft generally had   a triangular formation of runways to cope with any wind conditions  but those at aircraft factories and aerodromes that were always civil more often had just a single runway or two in a cross formation. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Pacific231G
moving the OT aviation stuff into a footnote

[KeithMacdonald]

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Highworth itself looks as if it was designed as a through station but, unlike Fairford,  that doesn't mean it was. 

 

I concur. Highworth station looks like it never meant to terminate there, it just paused and then forgot to continue.

 

[KeithMacdonald]

The track layout at Highworth is a classic challenge for a modeller trying to use stock Peco Code 100 track.

 

This pic on the excellent Highworth Historical Society's website ...

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/page/2#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/1037

.. clearly shows the points facing towards Swindon are curved sets.

 

But I hope this blow-up of that part of the track in AnyRail shows the problem - trying to use the curved points doesn't work, the radius of the stock Peco curved points is too small.

 

[KeithMacdonald]

You can see here how I've cheated by using straight points. Can anyone suggest a better layout using standard Code 100 parts?

 

C

[KeithMacdonald]

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The loop at Hannington would have been a goods rather than a passing loop.

 

Thanks for the correction.

 

The Highworth Historical Society has a picture of the branch's timetable. It looks like trains were so infrequent that there were never two trains on the branch at the same time, and no passing loop was ever needed?

 

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/page/2#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/714

 

This one from 1962 is interesting for modellers. It looks like one of the last Swindon Workers trains.

 

http://highworthhistoricalsociety.org.uk/galleries/nggallery/photograph-galleries/railway-photographs/page/1#gallery/48772dccbe5d1937fdf2f09c10cc1c61/641

 

Is that a Class 03 or a Class 04 shunter?

Looks like it's pulling a couple of suburban coaches. Can anyone tell what kind?

 

[Fat Controller]

It's an 03- I can't remember seeing any Drewerys with 'flower-pot' exhausts, and I don't think the WR had any 04s allocated.

 

[CME and Bottlewasher]

22 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

At this point, @CME and Bottlewasher and I might have to disclose our family connections.

 

I'll go first.

 

In 1940, my dear old Dad had just been posted to South Marston, as one of the crew on the four AA guns deployed around the sight. He had been sent there from Headingly Cricket Ground, his first posting, along with the rest of his AA gun crew.  He never could explain why they were defending a cricket ground in Yorkshire, perhaps Bletchley Park had made an early breakthrough in German strategic aims?

 

Anyway, one of the Very Strictist Rules was that you never-ever left a live shell in the breach of the AA guns.

 

Except it was the first rule that was ignored by everybody, when seconds counted in responding to an incoming flight of unwelcome visitors. All was fine until the time that one of his mates pulled the tarpaulin off the gun and somehow caught the firing mechanism. BIG BANG when nobody was expecting any bangs. How he never got court-martialled is a mystery.

 

My Dad and his patriotic guncrew made frequent trips on the Highworth train. Most often to Stratton, to help in the quality control of the products produced by Arkell's Brewery.

 

 

I forgot to mention that a few weeks back on "Secrets of the Transport Museum", there was a Fire Tender that had once been at South Marston

 

https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explore/our-collection/airfield-vehicles/merryweather-firecrash-tender

 

My father was often made to fly from South Marston in his boss' Piper Twin Comanche.

 

The diesel locos were all WR 03s ('Sugar Puffs'), and the coaches were, iirc, a B-Set with modified vents/roofs to cater for the low road over bridges/line loading gauge. These were basically workman's trains for BR WR employees from Highworth, heading 'inside'.

Edited May 25, 2021 by CME and Bottlewasher