Bloxham railway station served the village of

Bloxham Bloxham is a village and civil parish in northern Oxfordshire several miles from the Cotswolds, about southwest of Banbury. It is on the edge of a valley and overlooked by Hobb Hill. The village is on the A361 road. The 2011 Census recorded ...

in northern

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

History

The station was built by the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway, which was taken over by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

before its opening. The station had two platforms, a passing loop and a signal box of Gloucester Wagon Company design. There was a goods shed and two-siding goods yard. In 1907 signalling changes were made utilising re-assembled equipment originally from Bays Hill, Cheltenham. Hemmings states that a new signal box was provided in this year, Jenkins dates the box to 1890-5 and suggests that only the frame and locking were installed in 1907. The station acquired fame in the 1920s for its extensive gardens which included ''“Lawns, paths and treillage, rose borders and rock gardens”''. The gardens were the creation of the

Station Master The station master (or stationmaster) is the person in charge of a railway station, particularly in the United Kingdom and many other countries outside North America. In the United Kingdom, where the term originated, it is now largely historical ...

, Herbert Lloyd, and regularly won the GWR Worcester Division garden competition. By 1938 passenger numbers were small with an average of only two or three tickets per day sold in that year After the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Bloxham,

Hook Norton Hook Norton is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It lies northeast of Chipping Norton, close to the Cotswold Hills. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,117. The village is formed of four neighbourhoods: Ea ...

and Adderbury stations came under the control of a single station-master. When Britain's railways were nationalised in 1948 the B&CDR became part of the

Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex- Great ...

. On 2 June 1951

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways withdrew passenger services from the line through Bloxham. On 4 November 1963 BR closed the railway to freight traffic and some time thereafter the line was dismantled.

Film appearances

In 1931 1st Bloxham Scouts produced a film "On the Track" including scenes showing a GWR express seen from the windows of the signal box. Parry 2008, p.48. No copies of this film are believed to have survived. The documentary film "Twenty-four Square Miles" (1946) includes a scene showing a passenger train departing from Bloxham.

Route

Notes

References

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bloxham Railway Station Disused railway stations in Oxfordshire Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1887 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1963