Brightlingsea railway station was located in

Brightlingsea Brightlingsea is a coastal town and an electoral ward in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, on Brightlingsea Creek. At the 2011 Census, it had a popu ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. It was on the single track branch line of the Wivenhoe and Brightlingsea Railway which opened in 1866 and closed in 1964.

History

The station building was located on the southern side of Lower Park Road where the town's community centre now sits. The station and line was built by The Wivenhoe &

Railway company. This was incorporated in 1861 to build a line from Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea which opened on 18 April 1866. The company was a separate, but associated, company to the Tendring Hundred Railway which had built the line from Colchester to Wivenhoe. The GER soon negotiated to buy both the Tendring Hundred Railway and the Clacton-on-Sea Railway, and they became part of the GER on 1 July 1883. The Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea was absorbed by the GER on 9 June 1893. The station was host to a

camping coach Camping coaches were holiday accommodation offered by many railway companies in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland from the 1930s. The coaches were old passenger vehicles no longer suitable for use in trains, which were converted to ...

from 1936 to 1939. The line was temporarily closed on 1 February 1953 following severe flood damage but was not reopened until 7 December that year.

Closure

The service was identified for closure the

Beeching Report Beeching is an English surname. Either a derivative of the old English ''bece'', ''bæce'' "stream", hence "dweller by the stream" or of the old English ''bece'' "beech-tree" hence "dweller by the beech tree".''Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames' ...

of 1963 and was eventually axed in 1964. This was supposedly prompted by the high costs of maintaining the railway swing bridge over Alresford Creek, which was necessary to allow boat traffic to the many sand and gravel pits in the area. The station building stayed in place for four years after the railway's closure until it was damaged by fire in 1968. The building was finally demolished in November 1969.

Remains of railway

Ghost_of_The_Crab_and_Winkle_Line_-_geograph

The visible relics of the railway's presence today are the Railway public house and micro-brewery, and the old embankment which is now a footpath. It is possible to walk along virtually the whole length of the former route from very near the site of the old station in Brightlingsea along the old embankment to the site of the former swing bridge. This makes for a pleasant, scenic walk alongside the River Colne with its ecologically interesting salt marsh environment. The nearest railway station is now at Alresford.

References

External links

Brightlingsea station on navigable 1948 O. S. map

Brightlingsea station, Nov 1969 during demolition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brightlingsea Railway Station Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1866 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1964 Disused railway stations in Essex Beeching closures in England 1866 establishments in England Brightlingsea