good morning everybody welcome to Fareham,
my name is paul and i'm rebecca and we make videos about old abandoned railways today
we're going to go down the old gosport line now we were going to start with a very poor taste gag
but i can't find this specific location where the gosport has been abbreviated that's the point you
can't find it i know there's a bit of irony in here i will admit so we're not going to do the poor
taste gag we're just going to head that way and do every issue station 43 from the gosport line
in 1841 london and southwestern railway made their london to southampton connection
they were eager to carry on and build their line on to portsmouth but they didn't instead they
built the line through here at Fareham and on down into gosport where you'd have to catch a
ferry across to portsmouth that seems a little bit bizarre join us in today's everyday issue station
when we try and find out exactly why they did that instead of building a line direct to portsmouth
so just behind us is fair and originally the line went straight out of Fareham towards gospel which
is the line we're exploring today that embankment there that line of trees is where it came over
the road there and it went for three miles and 30 chains straight ahead of us down what
is now the henry court way which is a bus lane essentially, which is kind of good i guess um
but it's a dead straight line and that's exactly what the railway did no abandoned stations until
we get to the end of this that's quite a walk rebecca here's a bit again it's not one okay
um that's a little bit disappointing no pedestrians um so we're gonna have to find
a different way down there okay um there's some steps there so i guess we can walk down the bottom
so we've needed then three miles and 30 chains since Fareham and ahead of our
I can see traffic lights which is the first station along this line that is for brockhurst
it opened as brockhurst however they changed that because it got they kept
confusing with brockenhurst yep this was a two platform station
and then the lee0on solent branch was built and they made a third platform for it
the lee-on-solent, branch we're not going to walk today because we're walking so we're not going
to have time but we will do some overlay from each of those stations and the dates and stuff
but for the meantime we're obviously still asking the question why is this a such an early railway
1841 this was built pretty soon after some of the first railways in this country were being built
here is a as a line down to gospel why build it as a line down to gospel when you want to
get to portsmouth well we'll be able to answer that when we get down to gospel
and show you some of the wonderful little features that are still in existence today
well that's just the coolest thing in the world right it's very funky so it's all intact it's
someone's back garden all these original railings all along here um but it's still going yeah it's
not going is that people it looks like their fence has started there so obviously their land stops
there yeah but it's still there i can see the edge of the platform and that's like i mean you want to
get in there if you climb the fence couldn't you probably that's not oh that you can hear
right so we're unexpected to treat it today as we're walking down the track bed that platform
there is the uh lee on so branch that went off to the coast just that way straight ahead of us
two platforms either side is the main line that went carried on going down to gospel
just off that way there is the stokes bay branch which we will do shortly yep first of all we've
got the end of the line just down here which is gosport but don't go away number one gospel
is quite quite a piece of artwork and then we've got that stokes bay branch to cover there's only
two stations on there but pretty cool now i was unaware but outside of football that there was
a rivalry between southampton and portsmouth i was also unaware that this rivalry goes back
pre-1840s absolutely they didn't build a line to south Africa because of the rivalry
between pompey and saints not the football clubs because obviously they're in general
yeah i didn't realize that but that's the thing so basically they built this line
in 1841 one of the the first railways in the country on the very early railways in the country
london southwestern railway i presume and they said well we can't build it to pompey they had um
a objection from the residents so they said well you're gonna have to go straight into gospel
and then they'll have to get the ferry of course about eight years later they did
build the line to portsmouth and so that was kind of not the end of this line because it
carried on for a long time thereafter but it was an end of its first successful era
because it was very successful in the early 1840s by all accounts but we needed gospel
right gospel station just has now been turned into a whole load of small houses or flats or whatever
from 1841 so 180 years on 181 years on and we've still got this to look at and sort of celebrate
it looks amazing yeah so if we get right to the front with it now there's one station we're not
going to get to today which is i think clearance royal clearance yes victoria victoria that was
built i think two three years after the main line was built because the king and queen wanted to
holiday on the isle of wight in osborne house so had a private station built because why not
oh amazing i just think i don't think i've ever seen any
station building designed like this maybe you have if you have put it in the comments below
it's quite crazy lovely little sort of like you say residence gardens yeah wow did you used
to have a roof oh good question there's loads of pictures so i can imagine it having a root
domed roof over the top or a semi circle roof yeah as it goes down like this possibly kings
and queens have come through here on their way to the next station now how cool is that
we are now on a branch line which came off from pretty much from gospel station just to
the north where we were walking in fact now the original plan was to have a line down
here to what would have been a like a floating bridge across the solar to the isle of wight
the navy objected and didn't plans were sort of scuppered and it took another 10 years for this
line to actually be built i can't remember the name of the company but i'll put it down here
anyway we're heading now to see the scene pretty much i said i was no dude i was thinking i think
as well did we even mention the station that we were just at oh yeah we were just at station
that was gospel road which would turn into gospel road and elves church i think what i found really
strange is on that sign it said workhouse viaducts well we've been like one meter above sea level
here so how can there be a viaduct but actually right ahead of us there's like a inlet and estuary
and you can see the spinnaker tower in the distance and here was the obvious viaduct there's
still sleepers in the in the ground below us look at that it's lovely oh wow that's quite funky
so this is the end of the line for our journey today stokes bay
railway station would have been jutting out to the siege just there pre-1915
stokes bay pier and railway company they sold the line in 1873 i think lack of
revenue they sold it to london southwestern railway and sort of 40 years later come the
first world war the line was out of use because the steamer here had closed and
they deemed it no longer needed and we're about to be hit by some pigeons pigeons
seagulls but hopefully you can hear this bit and i hope you've enjoyed this more urban
exploration today in this real sense of walking for a town of course if you enjoy what we do
and these other videos click on subscribe and we will see you next sunday 5 pm gmt
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