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Before the catastrophe of the first world war, Cheltenham was served by three through stations for long distance services and one terminus. This page looks at the remains of the late-built Cheltenham to Stratford line in the town.
The Cheltenham to Stratford line was closed as a through route, in an unplanned fashion, by a derailment in 1976 that caused extensive track damage. This is the engineer and author LTC Rolt writing of the line a few years previously.
"At the time of writing ... these big diesels draw their trains of antique freight vehicles at far too fast a rate, and as there is only one signal box between Honeybourne and Cheltenham, there are no eagle eyed signalmen to give early warning of a hot box ... this malady is chronic and we recently had one of such magnitude that not only did the axle box disintegrate entirely but the spring then cut through the axle causing major derailment and much damage to the track. The damage was eventually made good, but there are regular rumours of closure."Landscape with Figures, LTC Rolt, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1994
Despite interest in recovering the line to provide additional capacity on a now overstretched rail system, these photographs record the severing of its formation in favour of an access road for a very extensive development adjoining Cheltenham town centre. Future use of the line will now depend on the feasability of a connection with the ex-midland line north of the town.
This page takes the form of a walk from the south end of the railway through the town. Much is currently in use as a footpath - the 'Honeybourne way'.
This adjoins Cheltenham's current station at Lansdown, a good mile from the town centre. It carries the road between the centre and the station, and at one time a branch of the Gloucester and Cheltenham tramroad running in the direction of the quarries at Leckhampton. The view through the bridge is blocked by an earth bank and much undergrowth - after that, the last few yards of the trackbed are now used as car parking. Behind the camera the railway path provides a quiet traffic free route towards the town centre.
Soon after this end of the line finally closed in the early nineteen eighties, a prominent new building was constructed for the post office, alongside the platforms at Cheltenham and blocking the Honeybourne route.
This part of the line had a far earlier origin than the 1903 GWR line - it is part of the first standard gauge line between Bristol, Gloucester and Cheltenham, with a town centre station at St James - on land which is finally being redeveloped. The junction with the 'New' line to Stratford is shortly before the bridge carrying St Georges Street. Before this third bridge a few railings and a new industrial estate to one side of the track mark the site of Malvern Road station - a through station within easier walking distance of the town.
... which in this photograph are vanishing beneath the new development. This is a view from off the route of the line, which passes beneath the iron parapets on the left. The lines to St James and to Honeybourne diverged at this point, the road carried above by two separate bridges, both in poor condition in later years. The architects will doubtless have been mindful to build the replacement pedestrian subway to 'Railway structure gauge' for the line is being retained as a traffic free path and carried above the development.
The railway path is carried high above the throat of the supermarket approach by a new arched bowstring bridge. It is rumoured that John Lewis, who will operate the supermarket, have agreed to replace this with a rail bridge should the line be required, but it also appears that the geometry of the site will not now permit this. The photograph is taken from the same location as the previous one, but now we look across the development, which occupies a complicated site covering many acres and ranging from the old St James station to the site of Cheltenham's cattle market. The site occupies the valley of the river Chelt, which now passes beneath all in an elaborate flood prevention scheme. The Honeybourne line was built through a pre existing town here and its remains provide a faint echo of the far more impressive but mostly vanished viaduct that was built to carry the Great Central Railway through the city of Leicester at about the same time. Like that line, the Honeybourne line was carried at rooftop height on a series of embankments, brick arches and steel spans. Here a section of embankment has been replaced by the bowstring bridge that will carry the traffic free path above the access roads to the Waitrose supermarket.
Here we look north along the line of the former railway from the site of St Georges Road bridge. The boundary between the new development and Victorian/Edwardian Cheltenham can be as abrupt as that which once existed between the town and its roof top railway.
The development area is securely fenced by the head contractors, Costain, as its nature resulted in a certain amount of direct action protest. Hence it is necessary for the time being to leave the railway path and circumnavigate the site. This allows glimpses of the new bridges addition to the largely low rise Cheltenham's skyline, and more discontinuity between old town and new.
This view looks at the redevelopment from the 'Bottom' end of the site. The camera here is on the line of Cheltenham's first railway - the Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad, which bridged the Chelt nearby on its final approach to its terminus, now beneath Tescos supermarket, close to the 'Hop Pole' inn.
The redevelopment includes the redundant site of Cheltenhams market. In the background the line is carried above Market Street by a characteristic steel span.
A closer view of the span. On the left is is a small gem, in this case polychrome brickwork
Here we've regained the trackbed and are looking south, Market Street bridge in the middle distance, to the new bowstring span.
The railway path runs at rooftop height past the town centre, a pleasant thread of green among the buildings.
Sandstone detailing for the blue brick abutments of the bridge carrying the line above the high street.
The High Street bridge from the trackbed. After this the line is carried out of the town, at first on an embankment, the continuity of the path is broken at the sports stadium on the northen outskirts. Cheltenham's subsoil is notoriously unstable and not all of the structures on the line here have fared well - some show signs of movement, while an accommodation underbridge at the end of the official path has been demolished piecemeal. The trackbed reasserts itself beyond the stadium, and it is beyond here that it is in the control of the Gloucestershire - Warwickshire railway. For the walker, there is scrunchy ballast underfoot all the way to the secured Hunting Butts tunnel, where a footpath crosses the trackbed and allows egress towards the Prest*** road and in the direction of the racecourse station. The railway track now laid north from the cutting by Hunting Butts tunnel is now 'live' and should be respected as such - it is discourteous to railway workers to trespass on operational railways.
The Honeybourne line makes its way out of the town, beneath yet another rusting bridge.
A short tunnel carrying the line beneath a ridge to the north of the town. On the far side is Cheltenham's racecourse station and a live railway once more. Bristol to Birmingham services can clearly be heard from this point as they accelerate away from Lansdown station on their way north, that line being around half a mile to the left of the camera. A proposal from Railtrack in the year 2000 was to join the two by a short stretch of new line here, avoiding the prospect of restoring the complicated trackbed through Cheltenham.
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