good morning everybody and welcome to every disused station number 23
you find us in South Wales although we're not exploring South Wales today
we're exploring today, Rebecca, we are exploring the Ross Hereford & Gloucester
railway and are exploring the northern parts from Ross north.
come join us I think at Wicks, right this is um
this is Ross station all the industrial buildings behind us pretty. Wait you said
wicks? Well wicks, screw fix you say tomato.... so yeah all the industrial buildings
behind us were off station nothing inside here let's go on to find some
more exciting things
Hows the big boots Becca? Big folks, great. Welcome to Herefordshire welcome to
every disused you station number 23 welcome to the second station of the day first
war screw fix this is Backney, Backney halt open in 1933. The majority line
was opened in 1855 this station was opened like 80 years later bizarrely
which is often the case trying to increase the traffic on
the line for passengers etc the first problem is this is the picnic spot which
we identify to stop and walk at but it's all pad locked up so we're gonna have a look
inside we think up there on those two benches is a beautiful viaduct so let's
go investigate
so Backney was just back that way now we're stood at track level all right
there's a viaduct there's the top of the viaduct we're at that level now but
obviously goes back downhill taht way tp backney which is the other side
of the road there so then if it's like another small bridge here or cutting
that's been completely taken taken away because we've run on the track bed level
here now but it just drops away there didn't it
good morning everybody and welcome to tunnelness so we are now at the
southern portal of the first tunnel of the day which is Fawley Tunnel if you
google Fawley tunnel you come up with Southampton. For this there's not a lot
online about this tunnel there's a few on the Ballingham which will be our
next and our first problem of the day is getting to this one which is proven very
difficult we've pretty much ruled out the northern portal because it's miles
from anywhere and there's no sort of access that we can see yeah so we
thought we'd try this southern portal first and again we have a major trouble
there's loads of houses next to the way you might better get down well here's
the biggest probably the biggest one we have at the moment is the drop below us
down the bottom by the bridge by the roadway we part there's actually in the
cutting of the railway there's a little business without the car so we can't
exactly sneak down there because it's all gated up and everything
so that's as good as we're going to get for Fawley tunnel southern portal
there's now way get into the northern portal unless we sort of knew who the
owner was and we could get permission to get on their land because it's a quite a
long trip off of the main pathway back. and that goes there any any
infrastructure like this but we got I got fairly close to the edge bit and you
can just see the tunnel it's very very wet down at the moment which is a pretty
obvious because it's late January. This is genuinely the sturdiest sty we've
been on for weeks it's like its grippy too. Not
slippy at all. So Fawley first, tick, fawley second tick,.....
now a Oh an Air B&B isn't it yeah
you join us as we're walking up towards Ballingham which is now an air
B&B which is lovely which we only learned very recently when researching on
the line but looks very lovely
right so we're walking down from Ballingham station towards a place
by the River Wye I assume its another viaduct that went over
the Wye so this Railway crossed the Wye four times we understand and I'm not sure which point
this is perhaps probably in a second I'm not sure and it looks just
as stunning as the first one
I mean we got a lot of footwear right it's boot testing time boot testing time
whoo so this pathway goes diagonally across
this field this field is next to the river wye and we've got like a week's
worth of rain so it's a proper test of your Footwear
I mean what are these, it's a potatoes, we are in a potato field.
right we learnt a lot lately about how tunnels go and respect to the help of
graham, various techniques shafts boring machines to have been used by
developers, but no clue however on bridges where'd you start, look how deep the
water is how fast flow in the water is there
where'd you start putting some blocks in the where's it where's the first brick
go maybe they like create kind of circle . Yeah that's why I
saw a big deep I don't know weirdly escape to the Chateau they did that in
to get across like the edge there moat, you have to ascent a bit where they had
a big metal cage base they dropped big stones inside but maybe someone
watching this knows, is there a video that explains how you put down the first who
knows. Also the top bits have got concrete around them again if this was
built in 1855 and this viaduct and had the viaduct I'm assuming they added
concrete around the top part of them for safety or strength. The reason we are looking up
the embankment is because it's a metal handrail there is another strange. now
if anyone knows about this lets us know! Please.
so we gave up on Ballingham southern Tunnel entrance that we've tried that hard but
Ballingham southern entrance had a big old house next to it was an air B&B there's
sort of no way round onto got the side and we thought we'd have exactly same
trouble as a southern portal for Fawley so forgive the sun you find us now walking
across some farmland obviously on a public bridlewat away in search of the northern
portal of Ballingham tunnel and we drove past the road which just
circumnavigates the topic already a few locals around we decided to come at it
from a slightly different angle over the top because lots of permissive bridle
ways and pathways up here so next up is northern portal of Valium
We're now getting close to where we think is the northern
portal we're again still on the pathway and we're still directly above the
alignment I've me tripped over 14 times on brambles Rebecca's been a bit
sensible
Ballingham Tunnel north important it's proving much more difficult than we
first anticipated in my notes I wrote down northern, No Problem.
south or north what I mean by that is I wear now 20 meters above the portal
again the access from the northern part is now a filled with horses literally on
the track bed they've got stables and horses on the
track bed that side over the portal so the tunnels are both fails!
okay last leg of the day we think this is Holme Lacey and we're looking for Holme
lacey platforms because apparently the do exist although
we're like..... honestly is everywhere we go today is like this.... Rebecca look
I want these gates. They would notice I think they'd notice if you
stole the gates yeah I reckon there's a lot here bits oh yeah okay so the
platform survived building has have been demolished obviously but there's still a
lot of brickwork on the platform there is that like a waiting room or something
there because I'm recognized originally because it's like a masonry building
just there see this is where you'd hope and I guess it takes communities doesn't
it takes communities to do what we've seen before where people turn things
into something a piece of heritage but this this is dying for people. People
of Holme Lacey. ....come down
here and form a little group and do something with this because this would
be amazing this would be a massive little area of history for the village
of Holme Lacey community and History. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn and
there's a group of people are trying. I don't know we're doing them injustice
but look there's an old brick wall all well on the side there you can just see
but everything's covered in vegetation I know it takes work but look there's
all sorts down here there's buildings here there's little pathways there
okay last of the day Holme Lacey that was pretty cool that was very cool actually
that was a good ending yeah hope you've enjoyed it hope you've
enjoyed the Viaducts especially because we have and some random obscure
stations that it must for every disused Station number 23, like, subscribe comment,
and all of that and as ever let us know any ideas away you'd like us to go and
visit any stories we can tell cause that's our 2020 yeah definitely if
you've got any stories about whether you sort of live there or grow up there or
your parents or families etc
alright see you next week