Mortimer railway station is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

in the village of

Stratfield Mortimer Stratfield Mortimer is a village and civil parish, just south of Reading, in the English ceremonial county of Berkshire and unitary authority area of West Berkshire. Parish geography The south and south-east half of the parish consists of farms ...

in the county of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

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 ...

. It is from . The station is notable for its well-preserved Brunel-designed

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 ...

(GWR) station buildings, which are still in use. The station is served by local services operated by

. The station is on the double-track

Reading to Basingstoke Line Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

, and comprises two

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms ...

s linked by a footbridge. Road access is to the north of the station, next to the up (Reading-bound) platform. The brick-built single-storey main building has a ticket office and waiting room and is on the up platform. The down platform has a matching waiting shelter. Both buildings are

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, designed by Brunel for the GWR. They are the only substantially intact survivors of this once-common design, although a much modified example exists at . The buildings are listed Grade II*.

History

The station was opened in 1848, along with the Reading to Basingstoke railway line and both it, and the station buildings, have been in continuous use ever since. The line was promoted by the nominally independent

Berks and Hants Railway The Berks and Hants Railway comprised two railway lines built simultaneously by the Great Western Railway (GWR) south and west from in an attempt to keep the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) out of the area that it considered to be its ...

, but this company was absorbed into the GWR two years before Mortimer station opened. The approval of the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

, who lived nearby at

Stratfield Saye House Stratfield Saye House is a large stately home at Stratfield Saye in the north-east of the English county of Hampshire. It has been the home of the Dukes of Wellington since 1817. Early history The line of the Roman Road the Devil's Highway ( ...

was required for the station's construction. After railway nationalisation in 1948, operation of the Reading to Basingstoke line, and management of the station, was passed to the

Southern Region of British Railways The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948 until 1992 when railways were re-privatised. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s. The region covered south London, southern England and the sout ...

(BR). BR undertook major renovations of the station buildings in time for the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the GWR, including removing the 1920s slates and replacing them with orange

pantile A pantile is a type of fired roof tile, normally made from clay. It is S-shaped in profile and is single lap, meaning that the end of the tile laps only the course immediately below. Flat tiles normally lap two courses. A pantile-covered roo ...

s in the original style. Following the privatisation of British Railways, the station is again served by trains running under the Great Western name.

Services

The station is served by Great Western Railway — local trains. There are generally two trains per hour in each direction on weekdays and Saturdays, and one train per hour on Sundays. Trains take 11 minutes to reach Reading, and 13 minutes to reach Basingstoke.

Cultural references

The station appears briefly in the 1974 BBC ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' serial ''

Planet of the Spiders ''Planet of the Spiders'' is the fifth and final serial of the 11th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 May to 8 June 1974. It was Jon Pertwee's fina ...

''.

References

External links

Video footage of the station on YouTube
{{coord, 51, 22, 19.39, N, 1, 02, 08.22, W, region:GB_type:railwaystation, display=title Railway stations in Berkshire DfT Category E stations Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1848 Railway stations served by Great Western Railway Grade II* listed buildings in Berkshire Grade II* listed railway stations Isambard Kingdom Brunel railway stations