Tetbury railway station was the terminus station on the

Tetbury branch line The Tetbury branch line was a single-track branch railway line that connected Tetbury with the main line at Kemble, Gloucestershire, Kemble on the line between Swindon and Gloucester. Opened in 1889, the line's usage declined after 1930 as road ...

, serving the Gloucestershire town of Tetbury.

History

The station was a typical

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 ...

building, with a wide canopy stretching across the platform. The original station building was constructed from wood. By 1913 it was in need of rebuilding and was completed in brick over the next 3 years. In 1908, confusion between Tetbury railway station and

Tetbury Road railway station Tetbury Road railway station was built by the Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway to serve the Gloucestershire villages of Kemble and Coates, and the town of Tetbury. History The station was situated on the Golden Valley Line, to the ...

( north-east on the

Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway The Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway was a railway company intended to link Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon, in England. It was authorised in 1836 but it found it very hard to raise money for the construction, and it opened only a p ...

) led to the latter being renamed Coates railway station. Prior to the name change, both stations had taken erroneous delivery of the other's goods. In 1926, the use of the station's

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'' ...

was discontinued when the

points Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

began to be operated from a

ground frame Mechanical railway signalling installations rely on lever frames for their operation to interlock the signals, track locks and points to allow the safe operation of trains in the area the signals control. Usually located in the signal box, the ...

by the engineman. In 1930, the platform was extended to allow horses to be transported to and from the

Beaufort Polo Club The Beaufort Polo Club is a polo club in Gloucestershire, England.Horace A. Laffaye, ''The Evolution of Polo'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009, p. 23Horace A. Laffaye, ''Polo in Britain: A History'', Jefferson, North Carolina ...

in nearby

Westonbirt Westonbirt is a village in the civil parish of Westonbirt with Lasborough, in the district of Cotswold, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. History Westonbirt was recorded in the Domesday Book as ''Westone''. See also * Westonbirt Hou ...

. In 1963, an entire Tetbury farm – complete with machinery, foodstuffs, staff and pedigree herd of

Hereford cattle The Hereford is a British breed of beef cattle originally from Herefordshire in the West Midlands of England. It has spread to many countries – there are more than five million purebred Hereford cattle in over fifty nations worldwide. The bre ...

– was transported from the station to

Stranraer Stranraer ( , in Scotland also ; gd, An t-Sròn Reamhar ), also known as The Toon, is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is located in the historical parish of Inch in the historic county of Wigtownshire. It lies on the shores of L ...

in 31 vehicles. On 4 April 1964, the Tetbury branch line was closed as part of the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

. The railway line and main station building were later demolished, with sleepers being used in pathways. The area was subsequently converted into a car park. In 2016 the Staffordshire blue brick goods shed was converted into an arts centre in a joint programme by Tetbury Town Council and Tetbury Rail Lands Regeneration Trust (TRLRT).

Stationmasters

*John William Boyd 1889 - 1900 (afterwards station master at Kemble) *Edward James Faulkner 1900 - 1908 (afterwards station master at Brimscombe) *Henry F. Hawker 1908 - 1917 (formerly station master at Newent, afterwards station master at Stonehouse) *G.A.R. Johns 1917 - 1928 (afterwards station master at Lydney) *Alexander Brinkworth 1928 - 1932 *R. Stephens from 1932 *Henry Harris 1935 - 1949 (afterwards station master at Llandilo)

Use

The line's primary economy was livestock. A cattle market was built adjacent to the station, and the line's freight generally consisted of food for livestock, milk, and coal. The Gloucestershire– Wiltshire border was such that livestock would pass from one county to another on entering the station – with different swine fever regulations in place between the counties, the station would experience lengthy delays before livestock could be trucked into and out of the station.

Route

References

{{Transport in Gloucestershire Disused railway stations in Gloucestershire Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1889 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1964 Beeching closures in England