morning mid-January very gray haresfield abandoned railway session somewhere just
behind the camera welcome to every disused station number 42 where we try and visit
every disused station in the country there is 6,800. we've visited around 400
so i'm guessing that's around about four five six percent thereabouts but for the meantime
welcome to everyday station number 42 from the stone house of nails worth branch line
this video is also sponsored by good people at NORD,
i'm getting that in very quickly because there's a Train coming thanks NORD, check
out the excellent deal that Nord have got on for you today a bit later in the video
i'm fairly confident nothing exists of haresfield anymore because it's alongside the main line,
that exists today the gloucester the bristol line um but there are some old fence posts along here
so i'm guessing the old platform would have been almost right in front of me now um but
we're gonna head south we're gonna get to today's main event which tells a few interesting stories
it was my intention to film anything along the line down to where our branch comes off
but driving past just so this joyous overbridge proud bridge wonderful arm work underneath
um if you get a chance to kind of look at this wow um well I've not heard of this prouts bridge
today we find ourselves in the cotswolds just about here the first line in this part of the
country came via brunel and his great western railway in 1841 this included a short line up
to sirencester as part of the park built cheltenham to swindon section of line then
came the bristol to gloucester railway in 1844 taken over shortly by midland railway
a year after that gwr caught up and made their link up to gloucester our journey today is going
to see us look at the potentially significant branch line leaving the main line at stone house
so it's not just the landscape that can give away clues to
old railways old canals and old abandoned things but it's also houses if you look at the houses
just past there they're curved and the reason why they're curved because this is the start of the
Nailslsworth or the stonehouse and Nailsworth branch line so the first clue in today's
railway walk is this old footbridge hiding much of its original construction
the train you see just gone off into the distance has just gone through what would have been
stone house original station built in 1844 with the main line off to the left to the left of that
scaffolding you'd have seen the the branch line that we're talking about today the stone house and
Nailsworth branch line and there's a few clues to his existence there's a bit of an old track
still down on the left of the main line here and of course why did i mention those houses curving
off to the left as a clue to the landscape and the history of the area well they backed on to
that branch line and you can still see some of the old fencing now that curves around as well
but we continue on this curved pathway behind these houses and we'll see what else we can
find along the rest of the line but before we do that it's a very quick word from our sponsors who
are this week nord vpn of virtual private network and they've got some deals on which you can take
advantage of the world vpn is a virtual private network which we use on a number of our devices
it's a tool that encrypts your internet traffic essentially hiding your ip address and virtual
location it has a number of benefits including the security side which is essential for us
it stops third parties from being able to view your online activity even as simple
as stopping them from placing adverts forever in a day on the thing that you've just googled
there are still many websites that don't use the s in https and if you unwittingly click on
a link or a website without one straightaway they can have your data nordvpn gives you the
extra layer of security protecting your online data one of the most useful features of nordvpn
is being able to change your location your virtual location at the click of a finger
football matches or concerts that you want to watch from another country simply change your
location and voila it changes your ip address and redirects the internet traffic through a different
remote server so you can sign up by using the link in the dooblydoo below you can sign up for
nord's amazing deal nordvpn.com forward slash the white wix and you will get 70 off a two-year plan
plus one additional month free for only two pounds 63 per month if a vpn is for
you you can help support this channel by signing up to nordvpn using the links below
thanks for sticking around even if you skipped it yeah whatever you shall be rewarded
so i walked along a bit of the Stroud water navigation which ultimately links up with
the Thames 7 sapperton tunnel you name it and i'm trying to get away from the Stroud water
navigation although there will be a video at some point in the very near future about straddle water
navigation but that's not today what i'm looking for is a cycle i think cycle number 45 because you
can walk or cycle quite a lot of this abandoned railway and in fact i'd almost get to say
nearly all of this abandoned railway so we already know that gwr got their line down from Gloucester
um through the Cotswold sapperton tunnel the railway tunnel and down to Swindon and we already
know that midland railway have got their way down from Gloucester to Bristol too what we haven't
got is midland railway having a link to the south coast yet so along comes independent company and
they want to link nails worth now let's say a mile or so or maybe a couple of miles further south
than Stroud but of course this was railroad mania so everybody wanted a railway connection
midland railway were very happy with this and obviously backed them despite the fact
that perhaps as a branch line they saw no money in it but what they did see was something else
so here's our potentially our first interaction with the Stroud navigation
um kind of cross it at an angle there's even an old barge or vessel i said little old freak kind
of barge down there i wonder how old that is right onwards to ryeford so ryeford is now pretty much
uh industrial estate absolutely nothing to see that I'm aware of but it was a big station there's
a couple of mills either side and I think in its heyday there were a few branch lines
we're coming into dead bridge and Stroud just to its west and you can see some of the the mills
over there in the distance they're starting to crop up now a bit more and this whole valley is
full of them so it's worth remembering at the opening of this line in 1867 the Somerset and
Dorsetit hasn't been built yet now for that reason not likely the midland railway company are very
keen to help and take over now it's almost run out of money within day one of opening so within
a year i think midland railway had brought them out or taken over at the very least i'm going to
guess and speculate largely because they really still needed that connection to the south coast
so dudbridgee station is a unexpected little surprise
passed here many a year before in the car without realizing that was actually here i thought it was
kind of on top of the embankment but actually i kind of stood on the platform level there
and you can still see bits of the platform which is great newly built subway at the end
which is pretty much exactly where the track they would have gone and obviously continues
on route 45 national cycleway 45 so let's head that way and see what else we can see
but before we do
huge walling here which obviously kept the embankment behind
off of the station but i'm guessing this bit here was a a recess for a signal box
perhaps we're probably only a small part way down the station about how big it was
it's a back end of dud bridge station big mill up there again i'll assume it's a big mill
a bit embankment walling there again i wonder if we're still at the station i think we're slightly
above the level of the track bed not completely sure so we have passed the sub branch line the
branch that went up to stroud there's not a lot to see the old stroud station of midland railway
was pretty much now covered by a main road we shall continue our journey along route number 45.
so another mile and a half down and we've reached woodchester that's not woodchester
station building although that's roughly where it would have been woodchester was made out of
wood very cheaply built because it was built six months after the line opened so what that tells
you is a couple of different things number one the line ran out of money very quickly so when
they did put the station here at woodchester it was built very much on the cheap number two the
reason why they built it six months after the rest of the line it's quite a quirky story so
apparently the objectors to it opening immediately um realized that there was a local catholic church
and they were concerned that that would encourage people to get off the train here and go and visit
the local catholic church now i know very little about religion so i'm guessing that wasn't a
good thing at the time perhaps catholic uh worship at the time was not very popular
so we've just journeyed past the massive dunkirk mills and they're responsible for making
walking sticks and trousers clothing stockings hosiery you name it they were involved quite a lot
and the reason attributed to a lot of their success is the use of these ponds
just down here to my right as we come into nailsworth they used to fill these
ponds overnight when none of the other mills upstream were working and they filled them
three four five six these huge great ponds and utilized the water throughout the following day
so we're literally just coming into the the northern end should we say of nailsworth where
the station and that would have started or at least the goods y'all would have started looking
for the site of where there would have been a turntable apparently there wasn't a turntable
but there was a turntable so the line was open for it was said to be open for passengers and goods
1867. colonel yolland now we know colonel yolland before from other tales around the country work
for the year the board of trade and he said well at the time we're not very keen on tender engines
going backwards or leading shall we say therefore i'm sorry you can't open this line because you
haven't got a turntable the company pointed out very quickly they did have a turntable at
either end so they had one back at stonehouse and they had one just my left here somewhere
um not sure where but uh yeah colonel yollandbig fan of colonel yolland he was very very much
uh pro safety when not many other people were at least the companies perhaps weren't
i'm not sure what shot i'm going to get out of now is worth and the big question again that's
on my mind is how midland railway thought they were going to head south from here and get to the
south coast using this line it's a big question mark because right ahead of me is a huge hill
so i need to look at the geography in that and try and understand it a bit better but
i can kind of understand why soon after maybe sort of within 15 years after
the branch of the somerset and Dorset was then used by midland railway from bath to get down
to the south coast and they had their connection quite a successful one for a period of time but um
yeah there's a good shed just up there stationed just up there private residence hopefully you've
enjoyed this little video every dish issue station number 42 if you have click subscribe
and do all the good things and of course a big thanks to this week's sponsor which is nordvpn