Disused Stations: Longdon Road

[Source:Darren Kitson]

This rather splendid view is looking west towards the goods yard with the steeply graded 1889 connection towards Moreton-in-Marsh curving away to the left. Despite the rusted appearance of the railheads at the bottom of the picture, the branch was still in use by goods trains and the photograph may have been taken leaning from the brake van at the rear of such a train. The elevation appears a little too high for it to have been taken from the end of the platform, which was ramped. We have decent views of the horse landing with its somewhat peculiar fencing and of the small wooden weigh office to the right. Horses were led over the crossing to the right of the landing and out through the double gate on the right. The open gate in the foreground was the public entrance to the passenger station. Of the two goods sidings, that on the left was on the track bed of the original horse tramway and ended abruptly, with no buffer stop, at the rather mysterious gate in the background. 'Mysterious' because it served no obvious purpose and ordinarily one might expect a permanent fence to have been in place. The line of trees running left to right in the background, left of centre, was the course of the horse tramway on its direct route south from Ilminster to Moreton-in-Marsh. Behind the cottage was a permanent way hut, adjacent to which was a ground frame for the siding point work. Point rodding is present but appears to be disconnected, suggesting that this photograph dates from between 1941 when Longdon Road closed to goods and therefore all traffic, and 1947 when the sidings were lifted. The sign over and right of the level crossing was the usual trespass warning. The GWR used several types of such signage including cast iron but the wording of all was very similar if not identical. Signs like that seen here were enamelled, with white lettering on a blue background. Some, such as this example were vertically orientated and others were horizontally orientated. Numerous examples survive, turning up at 'railwayana' auctions from time to time and it is interesting to note there are variations to punctuation which suggests that the lettering was applied by hand. Note the narrowness of the road over the level crossing, the scene being very different today. The two cast iron gate posts on the other side of the road survive as of 2024, but the gate and its posts nearest the camera were eventually recovered by the heritage Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway and believed to have been installed at Toddington.
Copyright photo from John Alsop collection

Station Name:LONGDON ROAD