The Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway – Part 1 – Shawford Junction to Winchester Chesil.

One of Britain’s fabled closed railway lines, It’s often stated that were it open today, the DN&SR would prove invaluable as an alternative route to the north. Starting from the Hampshire end, I head north into Winchester, thoroughly exploring the route to reveal that in the first two miles, a whole wealth of relics still remain.

In 1873 Parliament authorized the building of a railway from didcot in oxier to the South Coast Port Town of Southampton the initial Plans Incorporated for a line heading south from didcot whereby at Compton a branch would have connected east illey before heading on towards Newbury but no connection as the Great Western Railway

Still operated broad gauge at the time then from the barkshire town it was to proceed into Hampshire and arrive at wit Church where a loop would connect it to the London and Southwest Western Railways line between basing Stoke and Salsbury continuing it would then join up with the London and Southwestern

Railway again this time just north of Mitchell de on the main London to Southampton route by 1878 however the plans had changed and newb was added as an interchange and the route slightly altered and so beginning at the Northern end on August the 26th 18 1979 work commenced on the didcot

Newbry and Southampton Railway [Applause] the first section between didcot and newbry opened in 1882 and with an enthusiasm the company applied for permission to outline their route all the way to a new proposed terminal here at the Royal pier in Southampton now going to the National Library of Scotland Maps we see Southampton in

1895 and here is the Royal Pier which as you can see already had a station upon it served by London and Southwestern Services connecting Southampton docks southampton’s Coastline however looked very different in 1895 as it was not until the 1920s and 30s that the Western docks were constructed thus reclaiming all of the

Tidal mud flats to the West into land hugging the coastline the route would have hypothetically headed north on what surely must have been a planned Causeway as little land was available at bargate another station was proposed that site now sits beneath the West Key Shopping Center from there the line turn to the

West directly south of the London and Southwestern Railways Southampton West station Today’s Central Station and on an elev ated level in order to allow it to cross over West station as it headed north again as we head away from West station have a look at these raised Earthworks

On the map they show what appears to be an embankment and that is exactly what it is still here today it was constructed to receive trains to and from the Royal Pier trains which never arrived continuing other stations were to be built at Shirley chilworth albrook and

Twiford a new line was also to be built connecting Berg clear and the Great Western Main Line at Alder Maron but this was at the cost of abandoning the wit Church Loop enabling an additional station in the town to rebuil to serve the line and the Compton to East illey

Branch 1885 saw the line reach Winchester with the chees hill later renamed chel station opening but amidst the celebrations finances were low and the company were in real trouble with this in mind the proposed Berg clear to Alm line was scrapped as were any hopes of independently reaching Southampton

Now in a desperate situation with a line starting at didcot and terminating at Winchester they were still some 13 miles from their desired destination and almost bankrupt to reach Southampton the London and Southwestern Railway offered an olive branch and planned to build a short link from Winchester chisel and

Link it to the southwestern Mainline this opened in October 1891 and join the mainline here at shawford Junction a short distance north of shawford station Services began shortly after completion but with no trains or staff of their own an agreement was reached with the Great Western Railway to operate trains

Between didar and Winchester whereby the locomotive would be replaced by a London and Southwestern one and operated by their staff to complete its Journey to the now closed Southampton in Terminus from shawford Junction the line’s Southern extremity I’ll head north to reveal what remains in 2024 the site of shawford Junction is

Now unrecognizable obliterated by the M3 extension in the 1980s with its elevated roadway built almost on top of it this overhead view allows us to see just how it fits in to today’s landscape so here running from east to west and tucked in its cutting is today’s Southwestern main

Line and here is the route of the didcott newburry and Southampton Railway as it diverges North this postcard dated 1906 shows the junction as it was looking north towards Winchester so a very short distance from our Junction which is just up there we come to the line’s first feature and

What a feature it is we come to hawkley Viaduct Originally known as shawford Viaduct hotly opened to rail traffic in October 1891 breaching the river itching and its various connecting streams and water Meadows of Concrete Construction with brick cladding It boasts 33 arches and a total length of 24 ft and we’re lucky at still here as in 1984 the council

Planned to call the Army and to blow it up the scheme which was only thwarted after local objection in 2018 it was reopened as part of the national cycle Network along its length you will find two memorials both in the guise of signals this the first that we come to

Was placed in honor of the Railway employees who oversaw some 16,000 trains across the viaduct in the 12 months prior to D-Day on the 6th of June 1944 although not original to this location I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a welcome Addition the other is original in the guise of a London and Southwestern signal base and want the down Junction signal protecting shawford Junction today as the accompanying sign States is dedicated to the Allied soldiers who passed over hawkley by train on route to the Avington military Camp just to the

East of Winchester during the first World War on leaving this wonderfully restored Viaduct behind us we begin the real exploration of this line and immediately come across another Relic this Telegraph pole is original and in its original position and was restored along with the viaduct I’ve seen plenty of stumps but never one intact so this is a first for

Me it’s time to take our first look at a map and as usual we’ll turn to the National Library of Scotland and we’re looking at the Modern landscape just to the south of Winchester so let’s add today’s Southwestern Mainline and then the diot nurian Southampton Railway as it branches North

From shawford Junction and then hawkley Viaduct now I am currently here and it’s time to get my boots muddy and get in amongst the trees now this is clearly our former Road and you can still see the markings anyway this is known as five Bridges Road presumably named as there’s

That many bridges over and under it and this in front of me is one of them or rather the remains of one but it’s still quite impressive nonetheless and it still retains all of its brick work upon the abutments and all that really missing is the the deck which once span the

Gap now looking up there and the parpet is evident and I’m assuming that the other one is still there as well amongst those bushes that you can see and then on the Northern side well well that’s pretty much a a duplicate now I think I can scramble up

The bank here so let’s have a look and see if I can now there is a route but it might be death defying let’s see how we go nettles on standby and even walking here on this bank there’s a lot of Bast so which is a

Good sign hell of a lot Bast look at all this and I’m almost there ow been stung and there we go so that’s the top of our Bridge there going back towards hawkley and shawford Junction and here is a huge amount of ballast cool that we’re on top of this quite High

Embankment so let’s have a look and see what we can find up here it looks like a bit of a A Worn Path so I don’t know whether people come up here for whatever reasons and I can see something just ahead in the trees in fact that looks very

Much like a bridge to me got to avoid the Nettles and nasty things and I’ve seen something before the bridge which is very very impressive we have another Telegraph pole this one obviously Fallen can’t see the base of it but there you can see it and right on the

End we have the supports which carried the cables in fact the cable is still attached to it let’s get around here get a better shot there you go wonderful stuff even got the porcelain pot on it and some War decoration is that a lightning conductor that’s a great

Find so back onto the track bed and this cracking Bridge let’s go up here show him about the graffiti I think this went over Marshland or Tri whiches from I think it was a river itching which fed into the itching look at that that is that’s beautiful it’s almost

Untouched so yeah looks pretty marshy down there just jump down into the middle so we still it’s pretty pretty good condition considering you got a bit of corrugated iron on the sides which is a bit rusted away but the girders look pretty sound there’s a path down here and I

Think we can probably get beneath the bridge and have a look there so let’s scramble down here yep we can so that’s uh pretty handy just down this bit and there we go we’re underneath our Bridge which I said I think I mean you can see it’s marsh land this is probably

A tribut Tre from a river it’s a bit dry at the moment but you can see our Bridge there look and it’s in just as good condition from the outside as it is up there that is a decent find so I’m back up on the bridge and

The track bed once more and I’ll head this way again to see what else there is to find the one thing I have noticed is there appears to be a lack of ballast now mind you on saying that just spotted a load over there on on the edge of the

Embankment through these trees and there comes the ballast is back so it’s probably just been squashed in here while when people walk along it it looks like I said a well Worn Path I’ve also just spotted over there stump of a telegraph in fact yes

You got a stump of a telegraph pole and then you got here look an old piece of rail sticking up vertically that’s setting concrete what on Earth was that a sign poost maybe we got something else this side nearly went over and that appears to be

Metal was this a gate I don’t know it’s very sheer I mean if you look over the edge there I wouldn’t want to go down there you’d need a ladder I wonder what that was but yeah whole bit of rail in concrete all right carry

On now I know I’m not far from another Bridge so I think what I’ll do I’ll head back down the bank and I’ll take a look at that bridge from below so I’ve come down off the embankment now remember our way was blocked and up there is as far as I got

So we’ve come down again and here we have another Bridge another Arch Bridge this one bit different to the last one and we’re very fortunate to have all these relics still intact so our line obviously crosses above my head and our embankment continues up there and I don’t think I’m

Going to get any access up there so one thing I’ve noticed whil we’re walking along this path there’s our track bed up there on top of the embankment hard to see through the the undergrowth but here we’ve got this concrete and metal structure and this is a chain marker now

The railway even to this day is measured in miles and chains so 80 80 chains equals one mile and these are placed in the track one of these at every chain length and I’ve noticed so we got a few we’ve passed already we got another one there clearly they’re not in their original

Position but they can only have come from up there on the track we got another one there and we got another one up there and so on so beside the Magnificent St Catherine’s Hill which is up there and our line would have come through here now we you got some trees up there

That’s the end of the embankment and those trees there that’s where the embankment starts again and the embankment used to carry on through here and obviously it’s been completely cleared away landscaped over the years at this point here where you got the St Catherine’s Hill brid aboard would have

Been a small bridge I think this was a foot path even when the railway was there to access the hill so you I think it’s here you would have had a bridge so we would have had our embankment continuing all the way through here up to those trees up there which today has

Been landscaped away so I’m walking along the foot path towards Winchester that is adjacent to our track bed our track bed is just there about head height in this embankment I’ve tried to get in there on several of occasions but it’s too impenetrable you can get in but you

Can’t walk along it so I think we’ll give that up however here we have something extremely interesting we have a mile poost I don’t think I’ve encountered one of these in any of the films that I’ve done so so far now luckily we’ve got a little bit of a

Plaque here which says uh it’s a 26 and 1/4 Mile post from newb now without the plaque being there so obviously 26 denotes the mileage this little marker here indicates a quarter of a mile so then You’ have had another one a quart of a mile on that way and

You’ve had another marker there then another one a quarter of a mile further on with a third marker and then a quar of a mile on from that one you’d have had one with 27 on so each one of these denotes a quarter of a mile so returning to a more urban scene

The closer we get to Winchester and we see by this small Bridge which crosses another path up to St Catherine’s Hill is handlebars Cafe and it’s been built up on the embankment and track bed and inside are some good pictures of the line and they also do a very good black coconut ice

Cream so climbing up onto the track bed once more we’re going to cross over Garnier Road Street Bridge that’s just in front of oh just out the corner of my eye just spotted those look we got some concrete sleepers how many we got one two got three there just been dumped

Now the question I would ask did the did cot nubri and Southampton line use concrete sleepers anyone let me know anyway we cross over the very high sided Bridge here at Garnier Road and I wonder if it was a lot lower in the middle anyway anyway fortunately

It’s been paved over the track bed has been paved over so we can walk along it look there’s Tony so let’s carry on and see what we can find on the way and see how far this foot path takes us we haven’t got very far but the map tells us that this

Convenient footpath we’re walking on diverges slightly from the track bed so while if you look ahead the path starts sliding off to the left our track bed is here in front of us and it starts moving off to the right which might prove a bit of a problem for following it

However more treasure spotted we got some brick work there I’ve saw just back there in fact we got quite a lot of we got some Rubble here oh in fact we got lots of rubble so we got some concrete there but over here some concrete and some brick wood I

Reckon that is the remains of a plate layers Hut and look at the amount of ballast that we’ve got heaped up here so I think what we’ve got here is the remains of a plate layers Hut I think also so your track bed where I’m standing would have probably

Come along there and then it starts going off into the trees while our foot path diverges off to the left so coming off the existing track bed which is in those trees there we come into this clearing area and this is the southern end of the Barfield area but

Then was known as bar end and it was bar end Goods yard so our line would have come through here you can see the extremities on that side and that side to accommodate the expansion of all the sidings that would have appeared here here now today in 2023 it’s largely been

Redeveloped the actual shape of the goodyard itself still exists and you can see it from overhead and there are a couple of reminders still in existence which we’ll have a look at in a minute but so here I am at the heart of the former barend goodyard over there used to be a

Turntable where those trees are now completely site completely eradicated in front of us we’ve got a wonderful good shed which we’ll have a bit of a look at in a minute and then over there on the western side you can see the extremity of the goods yard this

Would wbin sidings Etc and in fact if we poke the camera through the gate if I’m not mistaken they look like Railway sleepers forming the wall now for the this beautiful remnant of the decot Nubian Southampton Railway this wonderful good shed still fully extent and if you look up

Here you see the brackets where an awning used to come across you know the classic platform canopy the white canopy Affair so this is where Goods would have been loaded from road to rail and there’s even an area here so there’s our loading dock there so if you get past this car

So you can see there that live been platform level Lor’s back up onto here load their goods and then onto the trains and then up there two more brackets where there used to be the awning it’s in remarkably good condition so heading North now we uh come to the almost the end of

Bar end goodyard there’s one more thing I need to show you so you can see the extremities coming in now the pinch point where it’s going back to just the two lines but over here was the site of the engine shed and part part of the original wall

Still exists so you see we got the white bricks topped by the more modern one the white bricks are part of the original uh where we going east wall of the engine shed here at bar end so something still exists I think I’ll have to look in the

Book but I think it was just a single Road engine shed so probably came out to approximately here I would imagine but it’s good to have something that still exists and then if we continue North Let’s cross the road again so our track bed now as you can

See has been replaced by a road now that I’m entering somewhere busier I’ll return to the National Library of Scotland map and here is the modern overhead view of bar end the car park I entered earlier can be found here and you can see the basic shape of the

Rail yard is very much evident now to give some context we’ll go back to 1896 with the line ofir 11 years old and immediately the area transforms the up and down running lines are confined to the Western Edge and if we move to the North End of the yard the

Position of the good shed that we just looked at is shown and also the map confirms that the engine shed where I showed you the existing wall had just a single Road inside it so it’s not until you get close to this bridge that you realize just how

Wide it is I think the road up there is called Quarry Road and it’s probably not too far off being classed as a tunnel [Applause] very difficult to imagine trains going through here obviously been a road for quite some considerable time and now as we exit the Bridge’s north

Entrance we come into the chazel OR chees Hill as it used to be known and the approaches to chees Hill stroke chill station which is just ahead of me so we now arrive at our first station stop and that’s Winchester chesil so over to my right where these

Trees can be found was a site of a signal box we got this lovely wooden bridge above us and that was there when the station was here over here we’ve got the location of where a small Bay platform used to be so it would have the buffers would have

Been approximately here and it would have extended not far out that way over here we would have had our down platform approximately where I’m standing now and the platform would have continued into what is Now chazel car park and then we’ve got our up platforms which would have been

Found approximately here and once again would have gone into where this building of the car park now stands so to follow to the other side of the car park and any further on where the site of the station was we had have to go through and out the other end of chesal car

Park before we take a look at the station’s North End let’s have a look at the map again and gain a perspective of the Station’s position on today’s view so here’s our overhead and then we’ll add the tracks route the brown area of track at the top is where the line

Enters um chz tunnel and here I’ll add the approximate positions of the platforms this is chisel Street just to the east of the station s and this road turning left in front of me gives a clue as to its former use now walking up this road some 70

Years ago or so and by this point you would have probably caught sight of the station Frontage just to the right behind you know where where you can see the car park today they’re on climbing up this torturous Hill known as St Gil Hill for two reasons one is to get around the

Back and get a good view over the top of the site of chz station the second is to have a look at this house here because that is the old station Master’s house for chzo station and luckily it’s still standing so still climbing on St Gil’s Hill chazel is down

There quite a distance as well Dro that is the thing I’ve come to show you up here we got a fence here and here we have broad gauge track see it there and there and these were clearly used so chz was the changing point between the Great Western Railway and the London

Southwestern Railway just getting my breath back and obviously in 1892 broad gauge was phased out and so in a good point of recycling the track was used to make lots and lots and lots of fence posts and there’s a few more up here so here is another of those broad

Gauge pieces of broad gauge track reused as a fence post and it leads onto you remember the thin Bridge we saw when we entered the site of chel station there’s another one there well this is the access on top of that bridge another bit of broad gauge and so

On and then we get onto this small bridge and ironically straight away you can see it’s obviously been repainted since the railway closed but it’s still in the colors of the Great Western way and possibly this to emulate the London and Southwestern so let’s have a look over

The side so there we have the track bed the line coming from the south from shawford Junction that bridge that we went under and North so our platforms would have been starting around this area here the uh down platform there and the up platform there so we’re now at the back of chzo

Car park our down platform right here on this side here and our up platform just here and in front of us we have the chesil tunnel we’ got a bit of a hole in there [Applause] [Applause] a [Applause] He A