103 High Street - Our Forgotten Railway Station?
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This photograph of our High Street Railway Station is full of mystery – when was it taken and why?
This splendid example of neo-Gothic architecture could have rivalled St. Pancras Station itself – had it survived. Indeed today, few local people know that there was a station on the High Street.
Much to the chagrin of the Town’s corporation, Tewkesbury was by-passed by the Bristol to Birmingham Railway and it was only after serious lobbying in Westminster that an act was obtained which permitted the building of a branch line from Ashchurch to the Town’s Quay. The single line and this station were opened in 1840 – but with a bizarre clause which prevented steam traction to cross the High Street and conduct trucks to and from the Quay.
The station was provided with two arched entrances – on the left for passengers and on the right to see the legally halted locomotive.
We think this unique photograph was taken in about 1864, the reason being perhaps that the law was being broken! Photography then was in its infancy and needed significant preparation. Worse still we can see that part of the arch had been vandalised to enable the chimney of this locomotive to pass through – illegally! The engine itself seems far too powerful for such a branch line. One day perhaps the scene will be fully explained!
The building to the station’s left was the “Manufactory” of Thomas Sharpe which was involved in the provision of accoutrements for the coaching trade. The building might be remembered surviving as Tewkesbury Car Mart.
The building was abandoned as a passenger station in 1864 when the branch line was extended towards Upton and Malvern and a “new” station was built behind today’s Morrison’s – however there is, so far, no record of its being demolished in the 1930s.
Thereafter, the line was only used for freight traffic with the wagons descending to Healing’s Mill by gravity and being returned pulled initially by shire horses but, latterly, they were pushed by a converted tractor.
After much pressure, British Railways finally closed all of Tewkesbury’s railways after the last passenger train on 12 August 1961 and, within a decade, the whole area comprising this station had been demolished to provide the shopping area pictured below.
However, for an unknown reason, one vertical column survived to bear witness to Tewkesbury's unique first and forgotten Railway Station. There is now a plaque to commemorate this lost history.
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