The Stratford Upon Avon - Midland branch line of the Railway from Blisworth to
Wappenham and
through to Cockley Brake opened in 1872.
The branch line to Stratford via Blakesley opened in 1874.
The Wappenham branch closed in 1951 (last train was at 4:45 on 30th June)
| A railway line through our area was first suggested during the Railway
Mania of the 1840s, but like so many other schemes of that time it came to nothing. By the early 1860s, there was a revival in railway building and the line past Abthorpe was authorised as the Northampton & Banbury Junction Railway in 1863 to run from Blisworth to Cockley Brake Junction, on the line from Buckingham to Banbury. At Blisworth, it connected with the London & North Western Railway main line from Euston to Rugby and the north and also with the branch to Northampton. The first section, from Blisworth to Towcester, was opened in 1866, but by that time, the company’s ambitions had increased and they had obtained powers to build a line onwards from Banbury to Ross-on-Wye, to link the Northamptonshire ironstone fields with the coal areas of South Wales. To match these plans, the company was now known as the Midland Counties & South Wales Railway. The total distance authorised was 96 ½ miles and the capital was £2 million. A financial crisis which struck the country in 1866 put paid to such ideas, otherwise we might have had mighty iron-ore trains thundering down the Tove valley! Another Act had to be obtained in 1870 to renew the company’s powers. This only covered the original line to Cockley Brake and the company reverted to its original title. Construction now proceeded relatively quickly, so that goods trains started running from Towcester to Helmdon in the summer of 1871. The whole line was opened for passenger and goods trains on 1st June 1872. Although the railway ran very close to Abthorpe, Slapton and Wappenham, only one station was provided to serve the three villages. The station was known as Wappenham, although it was closer to Abthorpe and closer still to Slapton. Of course, in those days a station was a proper affair, with a Station Master and other staff as well as sidings for goods traffic, so the cost of building separate stations could not be justified. People in those days did not mind a walk like that so much, but when bus competition arrived, the railways quickly saw their traffic disappear. The line from Towcester was fairly easy to construct. There were no major earthworks, although the cutting which takes the line under the bridge on the road to Blakesley is quite deep. This cutting was flooded on more than one occasion; once the water was so deep that the locomotive’s fire was put out! Although the railway operated its own trains, it was closely linked with the mighty London & North Western Railway, one of the largest in the country. It connected at Blisworth with main line trains and also with branch trains from there to Northampton. However, the layout at the junction prevented through running and therefore made a journey from Towcester to Northampton quite tedious. From Cockley Brake, the N&BJ trains ran over the L&NWR tracks to reach Banbury. Another scheme approved in 1864 was from Towcester to Stratford-on-Avon, called rather anonymously the East & West Junction Railway. Again this was a line which was impecunious from the start and it was not until 1873 that it was opened to Towcester. In fact it was in such a poor financial state that it went into receivership in 1875 and gave up its passenger services two years later. These were eventually resumed in 1885. A separate line was opened from Towcester to the Midland Railway’s Bedford to Northampton line near Olney in 1891, but the passenger service was not successful and it was withdrawn in 1893. Thereafter the line was used by through freight traffic and a few excursions. For the next few years, both lines struggled on providing a local service to the district. In 1908, the East & West Junction combined with two other lines to form the Stratford-on-Avon and Midland Junction Railway and two years later the Northampton & Banbury Junction was purchased by them. Thus our local line became part of a slightly larger concern, whose initials gave rise to the nicknames “Slow, Mouldy and Jolting” and “Slow, Miserable and Jolting”. In 1923, the railways of the whole country were reorganised into four main companies and the SMJ became part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway. Operationally little changed. but new rolling stock gradually appeared together with more substantial locomotives. Rough riding 6-wheeled coaches gave way to bogie vehicles, though passenger trains rarely exceeded one or two coaches. There were more interesting changes on the line through Towcester. The LMS had the contract to convey banana traffic which was imported at Bristol and routed via Stratford and Towcester down to London. Express goods trains conveyed this traffic. An even more strange working was the experimental bus that was given combined road and rail wheels. It ran from Blisworth to Stratford, where it transferred to road operation to convey guests to the Welcome Hotel, which was owned by the LMS. This vehicle gave a poor ride and did not last long! The nationalisation of the railways in 1948 was expected to herald a new era of prosperity, but little could be done to persuade people to use many of the rural lines. Passenger services through Wappenham were withdrawn from 2nd July 1951. The last train consisted of Class 4F 44204 running tender first and a single third class coach, but several people did turn out to see the train and it carried a large Union flag on the tender. Goods trains ceased a year later and the track was lifted by 1955. Gradually since then, the trackbed has been absorbed back into the surrounding land. In some places, cuttings and embankments have completely disappeared into adjacent fields. Where this has not happened, tress have grown to a great height and the trackbed provides a haven for wildlife. A few bridges remain as the chief reminders of the line. Train services through Wappenham were never lavish. Two or three trains a day, plus an extra on Thursdays sufficed before the First World War, when there was no competition from other forms of transport. By the 1930s, only two trains each way were provided. If you wanted to go to Northampton for the day, you left Wappenham at 11.11am, arrived at Northampton at 11.58, left there at 5.16 and got back at 5.55, to be faced then with the walk back to the village. No wonder buses proved more popular. You could go to London for the day on the same trains, arriving at Euston at 12.42 and leaving at 3.06, travelling back via Northampton. When the line was originally opened between Blisworth and Towcester, it was intended that it would be worked by its own engines. However, the company was unable to pay for them, so an arrangement was made to hire locomotives and rolling stock from the London & North Western Railway, and this arrangement continued until the take-over by the SMJ in 1910, when the latter company’s locomotives took over, usually 0-6-0 tender engines. The use of this type of loco was continued by the LMS, usually ex-Midland Railway 3F and 4F locos, until the line closed. Further Reading The Northampton & Banbury Junction Railway, by Stanley C Jenkins, Oakwood Press, 1990. ISBN 0 85361 390 7 Stratford -upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway, by Arthur Jordan, Oxford Publishing Company, 1982. ISBN 86093 131 5 A History of the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway, by R C Riley and Bill Simpson, Lamplight Publications, 1999. ISBN 1 899246 04 5 Towcester Memories of the Slow, Miserable and Jolting, by Robert Stevens, Towcester Local History Society, 1994. |
Bill, born in 1920, worked on the railways from 1937 to 1986. His stories are limitless, and to listen to some of the anecdotes from his experience is a delight. Here, he has put into words, some recollections of the railway :
Wappenham LMS Station (London-Midland-Scottish) I first visited Wappenham station in 1927. The thing that lured me then was the chocolate machine (Nestles) 1d bars. The Station Master, who at that time was Mr T Holton of Abthorpe, bought my first bar. I remember I was given a stand on the footplate by the driver, S Hancock of Blisworth, who allowed me on the footplate because he knew my grandfather, who was an ex-railwayman who had taken me to the station. After Mr Holton retired the position at the station became a Grade 1 Porter’s position, downgrading the post from Station Master. I remember lots of men filling the position later, namely Tom (I forget his surname), who later became a Passenger Guard at Northampton, Walter Wooton, a Towcester man who became a Goods Guard at Northampton, Walter Kilsby, who became a controller at Rugby Power Box and married an Abthorpe girl, Irene Chapman. Then E Bosworth, who was there at the outbreak of war, but owing to wartime conditions had to transfer to Northampton as a goods guard. During wartime, Mrs Page from Abthorpe performed these duties. The station was open from 8.0am to 6.30pm. The resident porter had a two hour lunch break. During this interval, the junior porter from Helmdon filled in, having arrived on the 11.11am passenger train. After his two hour stint, he cycled back to Helmdon. There were four passenger trains a day calling at Wappenham and two goods trains. The passenger train times were 9.40am to Banbury, 11.11am to Towcester, Blisworth and Northampton, 5.32 to Towcester, Blisworth and Northampton and 6.30pm to Banbury. The goods trains stopping were at 3.15pm to Banbury and 6.50pm Banbury to Towcester. These two trains used to detach and attach the loads and empties. The loads inwards were mostly coal for various coal merchants, who each had a wharf site, also there was Silcocks, who had two cake sheds on site, and a Hudsons sack depot for farmers grain sacks. Full loads of beer and spirits were consigned to Wappenham for Tanners of Syresham, transported by Wappenham carrier Bill Archer, who also collected all parcels for villages served by Wappenham station. There was a weighbridge and a loading gauge to check the loads of hay and straw which were forwarded from here. I still hold a weighbridge ticket issued at Wappenham for a load of coal for Tanners of Abthorpe. Sometimes the coal wharves would flood when the brook nearby overflowed. I have seen all the ballast underneath the track and sidings washed away by flood waters, and the track left suspended with no foundations underneath, until an engineers train carried out the necessary repairs. I have also seen S Pearts coal washed away from the wharf with these floods. When this occurred, the road outside the station was unusable. The Chronicle, Echo, Mercury and Herald at that time were four separate papers and were consigned daily from Northampton to this station and picked up and delivered to surrounding villages by Mr Eric Lawrence and his brothers in the evenings. If I remember correctly, the price of a ticket to Euston was 8s6d return and 10d to Northampton. I still hold a ticket from Wappenham to Euston issued in 1937. I refer to Walter Wooton, one of the porters in charge at Wappenham. I met him quite a lot in later years, since he was a guard at Northampton and I was a signalman there. He had a nickmane, Boggy. He told me the story of how one day he was trying to get some Moor-hens eggs from out of the ponds opposite the station, when he fell into the water. He then took off his trousers to dry them in front of the booking office fire. He served the tickets to passengers for the 11.11 from behind the high desk in only his underpants. He could not go out onto the platform to give the guard the tip to go, so the guard went into the office to see why he had not presented himself on the platform. He then could see his predicament. In the summer excursions were run from Wappenham to Bedford, Stratford-on-Avon and Evesham, all early evening trips mostly on Sundays. I have had to issue the tickets very often on these trips, also to be back to collect them on the return. Also I have known Cheap Day returns to Southend and Skegness call at Wappenham, the starting point being Banbury Merton Street. There was one general waiting room and a ladies room at the station, a horse dock also a cattle dock and cattle pens. One platelayer was stationed at Wappenham. The first I can remember was Fred White of Wappenham, later came Jim Snelson of Abthorpe. Mrs Page finished before the station closed. Joe Madeley of Evenley followed her and he later went as signalman to Cockley Brake Junction. Jack Stockley of Wappenham, the shunter at Towcester, came on loan to close the station. He is seen in the photo of the last train at Wappenham. In the 1930s, Hadsphaltic roads constructed a plant at Wappenham station to make asphalt for the big repairs to the A5. Lots of loads of stone, etc., were then consigned to the station and a fleet of lorries went continuously through Abthorpe to the A5 transporting the hot asphalt. It was so busy that a second entrance to the goods yard was built to allow passage of so many lorries. This entrance was nearer to Slapton bridge than the original entrance. To enable shunting operations or to pick up or detach wagons at this station. The train driver carried a staff which actually was the key to the line as such. This staff locked into a crevice near the hand points, there being one set of points at each end of the goods yard. When this key was placed in the crevice, it enabled the guard or porter to release the points; without this staff the points remained locked. In pre-war days, when cars were not so numerous, the morning train to Banbury on Thursdays, which was Banbury cattle market day, was always strengthened by an extra coach as farmers from all stations used this service to get to market and return on the 5.0pm from Banbury. This train was also used by lots of stall holders from Northampton for the ordinary market in the town. It was not unusual for the 5.00pm from Banbury to have a load of about a dozen cattle on the rear with a guard’s van attached. On Banbury Fair Days, before and after the war, an excursion was always run on the evening train from Northampton to the Fair, picking up at all stations, returning around midnight. Pre-war days, there was standing room only after the stop at Towcester. Normally, there would be around six passengers for each train daily. Two children from Slapton used the service to get to school at Banbury, these being Sheila and Neil Messenger. On the Stratford-on-Avon Roll of Honour for the 1914-18 War were two Wappenham men, E Whitehead and B Chester. The last train at Wappenham was on June 30th 1951. |