Sturminster Newton railway station was a station in the town of

Sturminster Newton Sturminster Newton is a town and civil parish in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset, England. It is situated on a low limestone ridge in a meander of the River Stour. The town is at the centre of a large dairy agriculture region, around which ...

, in the English county of

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

. It was located on the

Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, also known as the S&D, SDJR or S&DJR, was an English railway line connecting Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (now in south-east Dorset but then in Hampshire), with a branch from Evercreec ...

History

The station was opened on 31 August 1863 by the

London and South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...

as part of the

Dorset Central Railway Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , Dor ...

. A passing place on a stretch of single line, the station had two platforms with shelters, and a small goods yard. This and the passing loop were controlled from a

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

. The station was transferred to the Southern Railway at the Grouping of 1923, becoming part of the Southern Region of

British Railways 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 ...

when the railways were nationalised in 1948. The goods yard gave milk trains access to the private sidings of the local

creamery A creamery is a place where milk and cream are processed and where butter and cheese is produced. Cream is separated from whole milk; pasteurization is done to the skimmed milk and cream separately. Whole milk for sale has had some cream re ...

. Started in 1913 by local farmers to produce

cheddar cheese Cheddar cheese (or simply cheddar) is a natural cheese that is relatively hard, off-white (or orange if colourings such as annatto are added), and sometimes sharp-tasting. Cheddar originates from the English village of Cheddar in Somerset. Ched ...

and

pasteurised milk Pasteurization or pasteurisation is a process of food preservation in which packaged and non-packaged foods (such as milk and fruit juices) are treated with mild heat, usually to less than , to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life. Th ...

, it was taken over by the

Milk Marketing Board The Milk Marketing Board was a producer-run product marketing board, established by the Agricultural Marketing Act 1933, to control milk production and distribution in the United Kingdom. It functioned as buyer of last resort in the milk market in ...

in 1937. Milk trains ceased in 1966 upon closure of the line, with the creamery remaining in operation until 2000, when it was closed by owners

Dairy Crest Saputo Dairy UK Limited is a holding company for Dairy Crest Limited, a British dairy products company. It was created in 2019 when the Canadian company Saputo Inc bought Dairy Crest. Dairy Crest itself was created in 1981 as a spin-off of the Mi ...

. The station was closed when the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway closed on 7 March 1966 and subsequently demolished leaving no trace of the station.

Subsequent usage

Today the site is a trading estate and small park with a set of commemorative gates at the entrance.

References

External links

Sturminster Newton station map
Ordnance Survey, 1946
Sturminster Newton Station
Dorset Stations {{coord, 50.9270, -2.3031, type:railwaystation_region:GB, display=title Disused railway stations in Dorset Former Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1863 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1966 Beeching closures in England Sturminster Newton

History

Subsequent usage

References

Further reading

External links