Believed opened as a stopping place on the Stratford & Moreton Railway (the horse tramway): 5  September 1826. Opened as a proper railway station: November 1892 (exact date unknown) having previously been ‘Golden Cross’ Request Stop.

Closed as a Wartime economy measure: 1 January 1917. Reopened: 1 January 1919 (On Page 42 of his 1987 book ‘The Stratford & Moreton Tramway’ author John Norris gives the reopening date as March 1919 but with no mention of the particular day.) Closed to passengers: 8 July 1929

Notes: Stretton-on-Fosse is a village some 3½ miles north of Moreton-in-Marsh. It is in the County of Warwickshire and close to the border with Gloucestershire as per the present day county boundaries. In 2011 its population was just 439. ‘Stretton’ means ‘Settlement on a road’ and ‘Stret’ derives from the Anglo-Saxon for the modern word ‘Street’. The village is about a quarter of a mile west of the Fosse Way at its closest point; originally the Exeter - Lincoln Roman Road of which most is now the A429. The village should not be confused with Stretton-under-Fosse which lies some distance away between Rugby and Coventry.

The horse tramway that was the Stratford & Moreton Railway crossed the Fosse Way at a point about one third of a mile east north-east of the village centre at the Golden Cross inn. At this time the population of Stretton-on-Fosse was approximately half the 2011 figure given above. As far as can be determined there was no tramway wharf as was provided elsewhere with buildings and Stretton-on-Fosse was nothing more than a stopping place at the Fosse Way level crossing.

This section of the horse tramway was rebuilt by the Great Western Railway (GWR) as a proper railway to create its Moreton-in-Marsh to Shipston-on-Stour direct branch and Stretton-on-Fosse was designated a Request Stop, but still without a proper railway-type station. The Request Stop status may have existed earlier than, and perhaps as early as Mr Bull's passenger service described elsewhere, but the first record dates from 1889 when the Shipston-on-Stour branch railway opened. The Request Stop was, colloquially if not officially, logically known as ‘Golden Cross’. The non provision of a proper station in 1889 may well be indicative of anticipated very low usage although the same might be said of Longdon Road which did have a proper railway station provided in 1889. Nevertheless the GWR did provide a proper station in 1892 and it was reported as being 'ready' in November of that year. Alas, the exact, official opening date remains unclear.

From the opening of the Shipston-on-Stour branch railway on the 1st of July 1889 ‘Golden Cross’ was provided with a level crossing keeper's cottage, which appears to have doubled as a stationmaster's house. A short goods siding had appeared by 1887. The weigh office was, as at Shipston-on-Stour, a brick structure to the standard GWR design and a goods loading gauge was provided; originally a non adjustable gauge, later replaced by a GWR adjustable type. The weighbridge and office was provided in 1906 and the office was built using blue brick as opposed to that at Shipston-on Stour which was of red brick, while Longdon Road had to make do with a diminutive wooden hut as its weigh office.

The cottage differed to others provided along the branch; while the others had a single storey extension to the rear, that at Stretton-on-Fosse had a two-storey extension although its pitched roof did not extend up to the same height as that of the main part of the building. In the late 19th century Mr Charles Cotton was the incumbent. Curiously the 1896 Kelly's Directory for Warwickshire lists other stations in the County as having a ‘station master’ and this is consistent apart from at Stretton-on-Fosse where Mr Cotton was listed as a ‘booking constable’ (‘constable’ is today assumed to mean a police officer of the lowest rank but the term literally means "a person having authority" and not necessarily a police officer). ‘Booking constable’ suggests Mr Cotton held a grade lower than that of stationmaster although stationmaster was in effect what he was. By the time of the temporary 1917 closure, the position was held by a Mr Hills and he was transferred elsewhere. Following withdrawal of the passenger service in 1929 both Longdon Road and Stretton-on-Fosse are known to have been staffed by a Leading (Grade 1) Porter and this may well have applied at Stretton-on-Fosse from the 1919 reopening.

As at Longdon Road and Shipston-on-Stour the platform at Stretton-on-Fosse was about 170ft long and as per Longdon Road, was on a curve. The same type of wooden external frame station building was provided although of the three such buildings on the Shipston-on-Stour branch each was to a slightly different design. The building at Stretton-on-Fosse had, for example, only one door leading to and from the platform. At the west end of the building was an annex containing a lavatory, presumably Gentlemen, with a water tank on its roof. Access was via an external west facing door. Originally the station was provided with two running-in boards and why this was thought necessary is unknown. Longdon Road somehow muddled through with just a single running-in board as did Shipston-on-Stour although a single board at smaller branch termini was standard provision. Whatever the reason, the running-in board at the east end of Stretton-on-Fosse station was later removed.

Other provision was in the form of three small wooden huts, on the Down side of the line and at the east end of station site. Of these, one was an original PW (Permanent Way) hut, another was a second PW hut added at a later date but the third hut, which sat closer to the running line, is a something of a mystery. It may have housed Ganger George Webb's 'rail velocipede', the tragic story of which is told in another section. The 'rail velocipede' would have had to have been replaced and a pump trolley and trailer is known to have been based at Stretton-on-Fosse. Perhaps the mysterious third hut housed this pump trolley, of which only one photograph is known to exist showing it parked on the siding in 1947. By 1947, of course, Stretton-on-Fosse had closed to all rail traffic so to park the pump trolley on the siding would have been convenient.

The railway at Stretton-on-Fosse station was on a gradient of 1:93 falling in the Up direction (toward Moreton-in-Marsh) and the siding, which had points trailing in the Up direction, was given a trap point to protect the running line from any runaway wagons. As far as it has been able to determine, this was the only trap point on the Shipston-on-Stour branch outside of Moreton-in-Marsh. The running line at Shipston-on-Stour being protected by a head-shunt, sometimes known as a 'trap siding'.

The Fosse Way level crossing immediately west of Stretton-on-Fosse station was of interest by virtue of having four gates, two sets of two gates with one set each side of the road. When the gates were closed to the road the gates met each other end on but when closed to the railway the gates overlapped. This is better seen in the photographs. The reason for this arrangement was the road being wider than the railway trackbed. The level crossing was skewed but other skewed crossings on the branch had conventional two-gate arrangements, which may cause one to wonder what was different about Stretton-on-Fosse. In short the answer is not known although it may have been connected with the widening of the road (at an unknown time point), being at odds with the land boundaries of the original horse tramway. The boundaries did not permit the installation of wider and more suitable gates. The reader is left to ponder this question for his/herself.

Traffic levels, goods and passenger, were always somewhat dire and it is doubtful the temporary 1917 - 1919 closure genuinely inconvenienced many people although there were some objections. In or by 1914 there were already road services operating on the Fosse Way, calling into Stretton-on-Fosse village on the way and after WWI there was an upturn in road motor services as ex servicemen purchased military surplus motor vehicles and set up their own businesses, passenger and cartage. However these businesses, run by ex servicemen, did not spring up overnight and many servicemen were not demobbed until 1919 and in some cases later. The Allies were involved in the Army of Occupation in Europe after the signing of the Armistice on the 11th of November 1918 and WWI did not officially end until the 28th of June 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles. Thus it is not unreasonable to think the reopening of Stretton-on-Fosse on the first day of 1919 was, for a few more years anyway, its saving grace as, had the reopening been delayed any further the station may well have remained closed to passengers. In 1915 receipts for Stretton-on-Fosse were Passenger £236 and Goods £433; from which had to come wages, maintenance costs and so on let alone contribute to operating expenses of the branch as a whole.

In the event, Stretton-on-Fosse was to survive as a passenger station only for a further ten years, closure coming with the withdrawal of the Shipston-on-Stour branch passenger service on the 8th of July 1929. Both Stretton-on-Fosse and Longdon Road closed to all traffic on the 1st of June 1941. This was likely another wartime economy measure but this time the two intermediate stations remained closed. Not even the goods siding remained available as a public siding for, say, the odd truckload of coal - it simply was not worth it. However there is some evidence that Stretton-on-Fosse remained in use for a time after 1941 for parcels, which traffic, if any, would have been handled by a road vehicle in the same manner as Shipston-on-Stour during its later years. In their 1987 book "The Shipston-on-Stour Branch", authors Jenkins and Carpenter make a mention of this on Page 61. In 1942/3, they say, the late turn porter at Moreton-in-Marsh would cycle to Stretton-on-Fosse with the inference being that the porter would deal with any parcels at the booking office. Porter Archie Warren is quoted as implying he cycled to Stretton-on-Fosse Monday to Friday but on the days the goods train ran, which was at that time Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he would return, presumably with his bicycle, in the brake van of the train. On Tuesdays and Thursdays therefore he would cycle back to Moreton-in-Marsh. This adds weight to the suggestion that parcels traffic was indeed handled by road vehicles. Mr Warren is quoted as saying in respect of parcels that "there was hardly anything" and also made the rather telling observation that he "never saw a soul".

Shipston-on-Stour station closed to rail traffic in 1960 but remained in use for road-based parcels traffic until 1963 when absolute closure occurred. In view of the above story regarding Archie Warren the waters are rather muddied regarding when absolute closure of Stretton-on-Fosse occurred. What is certain is that Stretton-on-Fosse station did not survive as a parcels office until 1963 as by that time the buildings had long since been removed.

Following closure to all rail traffic in 1941, Longdon Road had its building and sidings removed in 1947. It is therefore likely Stretton-on-Fosse station received the same treatment at the same time. Following withdrawal of goods traffic on the Shipston-on-Stour branch in 1960 Stretton-on-Fosse was in due course used as a base by the track lifting contractor. Here, recovered materials were delivered by the contractor's own small internal-combustion locomotive for removal by road. A crawler crane was positioned at Stretton-on-Fosse for this purpose. Today the cottage survives in residential use but when passing on the A429 (Fosse Way) today (2024) it is partially hidden from view by hedging. There is no obvious evidence today that a railway ever existed at this location other than the name of the house but this is set back from the road and easy to miss. Opposite is a gap in the hedge leading onto a farm track; this is a red herring as it is not the former trackbed which was a little further north but some 300 yards of the former trackbed on the north-west side of the road has been ploughed back into a field. Nothing remains of the platform and as far as is known the weigh office has also disappeared.

Other than the cottage one further building defiantly still stands albeit not of railway origin. This is the former Golden Cross inn, a three storey Georgian building with a rather forbidding appearance when viewing its front elevation. It began life as an 18th century coaching inn and survives complete with many of its original outbuildings which would have included stables and a smith's shop - all the necessary accoutrements for the horse-drawn stagecoaches of a bygone era - along with its smallholding for providing the inn with fruit, vegetables, eggs and so on... There were no Tesco home deliveries in those days, only street traders offering various services and products. In the 1940s the landlady was a Mrs Marsh and at that time the Golden Cross was still a combined hotel/public house and farm. The Golden Cross has long since ceased to be an inn and is today part of Golden Cross Farm, the former inn itself being a rather splendid holiday let (as of 2024). These Georgian three-storey coaching inns were and still are common in this part of the country and most are now either private houses or holiday lets. At least one, however, The Bell at Alderminster still serves the purpose for which it was intended although of course patrons no longer arrive bruised and battered after a horrendous journey in a horse-drawn coach on rutted and uneven roads.