[Music] we don't often talk about beaching on this channel can be a bit political, a
bit divisive bebching axe the destruction of the railways however today's video is a
good example of how the destruction of the railways probably began 100 years or so before
beeching ever wielded his axe [Music] to my left just there is a gwr main line from Paddington
to Bristol opened in 1840 and towns all the way around here
felt the presence of the railways and how they could benefit their Community their towns
bring business and prosperity so Branch lines were proposed up and down this area [Music]
Watlington was one such town extremely poor Road Network described as having the worst
Road Network in the 1830s in this area no navigable waterways to speaker for six or
seven miles the railway connection was what it really needed it's come 1861 on the Watlington
and Wallingford Railway was proposed Watlington was about to get its first Railway connection
and prosperity was on the cards or was it welcome to the story of how beaching perhaps
wasn't the real problem for the railways so with this proposal in 1861 while the line
would have gone from here in Chosley all the way up to princess Risborough and it would
connect all the towns and Villages along the Route despite the financial crisis looming
around the corner for the townsfolk well this would be a time of prosperity they were going
to get a railway so for those of you that have been subscribed for a while to the channel
you know that we like to tick off every disuse station so I've got a list of all the stations
that we're going to look at and a load of pictures so I can try and compare like for
like as our journey progresses up to princess Risborough north east of here [Applause] 1866
and the railway reached Wallingford which is just there behind me the now end of the
line for the Heritage Railway but of course you wanted to get a train to Watlington further
on the line well you couldn't because remember that financial crisis we talked about earlier
well that had now gripped the nation and nobody really wanted to stump up their cash [Applause]
the line had reached there and no further I say there and the station was actually a
bit further down the hill the ironically named beaching drone or beating drive but uh yeah
1866 that was as far as the line was going to get and it was looking likely it was going
to go no further
so as I continue my journey North East towards Princess Risborough where there are no lines
to be seen no embankments no cuttings or otherwise but according to my next location I'm looking
for a station called Watlington so they did have a station so where did that come from
because it certainly wasn't from the Rolling foot and chose the direction
so behind me you've got the Ridgeway which spans quite a section of the south of England
really beautiful even on a cloudy day like this now just here to my North I've got an
old chimney sticking out of the trees there and my research is correct there's some old
remains looking rather um sketching I don't know how much will come out on camera but
you can still see the old remains of Watling Watlington Station Washington didn't connect
with Wallingford tell you why in a second
the solicitors of the Wallingford and Watlington line informed them that the Rival line was
to be placed before Parliament that line would connect princess Risborough to Watlington
now for the good folk and very patient folk of Watlington this was great news
[Music] that just seemed really odd why would you build a line all the way from princes
risborough right down to watlington and not connected just a few more miles to Wallingford
I think we're going to need to do a little bit of digging first of all though we're looking
for Ashton Aston rowent Aston Rowant I think just down there a couple of remains at the
start some old track the line was just down there at the bottom of his uh this Garden
we can follow it now a bit further along the line up towards another Heritage Centre second
Heritage Centre of the day
but okay let's only have a look at the track bed which is just through here
now that's that's not the most exciting view you've ever seen that's felt quite good to
be clambering about in the Hedge as always um and uh right ahead of me there would have
been the side of the old station this is a nice tick despite there being no remains Aston
ruined [Music] I will leave Aston Rowant behind just check in here just to make sure we don't
miss anything and when you do dig a bit deeper into the origins of this line well it was
going to cost 36 000 pounds not a great deal that's good news no major viaducts tunnels
no big Earthworks relatively simple line 28 000 pounds of that 36 000 pounds came from
two individuals the Earl of Macclesfield who inherited his Earldom he was um Tory Pier
MP and a chap called Thomas Taylor now Thomas Taylor was a exceedingly wealthy cotton manufacturer
for the North and he now settled here in the South looking to make another dollar or two
it seemed tells you where this line was going with regards to what it was for industry perhaps
rather than the people [Music]
so this is part of the Ridgeway track even though the Ridgeway is up there with a dark
cloud in the distance behind it quite the image I love how this line sort of sits underneath
that Ridgeway all the way and the line itself is just here and followed it for quite a while
now since Aston Rowant and you can always see just about a foot foot and a half of embankment
that's it nothing else and here's a little old Crossing Point I can show you exactly
what I mean what I've been seeing for the last mile or so um yeah I mean you can get
in this bit of the uh trap bed
I can show you exactly what I mean down there you've got um maybe a bit more on the foot
and a half two foot but this is sort of classic earthwork for this Railway it seems a couple
of feet raised that's it nothing serious nothing in terms of embankments cuttings of great
significance now we're just coming up to another halt it's our second halt of four that were
opened after 1900 I think this is 1906.
Kingston Crossing halt highly likely that um by that time gwr were thinking numbers
dwindling um struggling lack of money Etc
[Music] here is the crossing another road up to the Ridgeway
and I think here would be the halt [Music]
[Music]
so next up is Chinnor despite closing as with the rest of the line to passengers in 1957.
that continued seeing traffic in a freight capacity until 1989.
I think there was a cement Works nearby which kept that alive and of course now it's home
to the end of the Heritage Railway, Chinnor and Princess risborough I think we're a little
bit too early in the season for those sort of shenanigans that will leave that to a another
day [Music]
nearly at the end of this line not quite because at the end of the line there's a really bizarre
story I've literally just missed two halts impossible to get to unless you walk miles
uh WainHill opened in 1925 and bledlow uh Bridge halt now they both really underline
the demise of this Railway opened again as later hoped by gwr to try and rescue it bring
on more passengers by that time the business in need of the freight that had been promised
early on by the businessman he had dwindled long since the windowed if it ever existed
at all and the infrastructure that this Railway needed was like so many other Branch lines
in fact the station master from bledlow on the line that's here which is a different
line altogether Oxford tame and Princess risborough line well bledlow station Master had to look
after the uh the station here the halt here bledlow as well he was responsible for the
the paraffin lamps and all sorts of bits and pieces that shows to you the failure of the
branch lines in this country and many others the infrastructure was huge and a bus well
a bus could could go to every street corner it could go to the set Centre of towns so
many of these lines built early they didn't really care about the towns they were serving
they're a mile away from them that shows you certainly in this instance how Branch line
is this like this were never going to survive and compete [Music] Sustrans has done a great
route on top on that Oxford Thame Princess Risborough line you're trying to find
trying to find the route adjacent to it adjacent to it because that goes down to our Junction
where our line meets this line you can see in their heads there's a big old bridge abutment
oh they're running at me literally running at me
so here right here is where the junction was so you out of Princess risborough come along
this Oxford line and then hanger left and you'll be able to go down our line but when
the line opened you couldn't or at least when they want it to be open they couldn't so they
invited Colonel Rich from the Board of Trade not heard of him before we normally prefer
Holland so Colonel rich said well look you've got your Junction here but it doesn't actually
link up to the line so you've just got effectively a standalone line with no Junction so that's
not because you can't do that there's no station here there's no provision for trains to stop
at all it was like that wasn't even a consideration for those uh the owners of the line and uh
Colonel rich said well I'll come back so he did come back a few months and he said you've
made some repairs but you still haven't connected it to the main line a few months later they
did eventually connect it to the main line and had a proper Junction and it's in its
proper sense and you could reach princess risborough but again within a year they said
oh well it's not really working out it's making a profit though perhaps you gwr would like
to lease it from us for 600 pounds a year when gwr looked at the books well it turns
out the line really wasn't making any money in fact it was losing 800 pounds in that first
year so a little bit of underhand tactics there um from our friends Thomas Taylor and
the Earl of Macclesfield [Music] hope to bring you a lot more I had hoped to bring you the
junction where you could see um the line peel off but unfortunately it looks like it's actually
still in use as storage um albeit quite old store which I can't do that frustratingly
um but I guess this line really for me epitomizes why the railways failed in the 40s 50s and
60s because essentially they already had failed no joined up thinking whatsoever in the early
years of the railways 1866 we're talking about for this line and the directors were just
allowed to get on with it and basically fudge it they didn't even connect another three
miles further south from Watlington onto Wallingford and maybe that wouldn't have solved this line
maybe it would still have been closed by Beeching but at least it would have given it a fighting
chance and at least it would have been for people rather than just their own pockets
I've been Paul I've been a bit grumpy bit blame it on the weather I'll see you this
time next week thanks for watching everybody [Music]
[Music]