Bruton railway station serves a largely rural area in the county of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in England. The station is situated in the market town of

Bruton Bruton ( ) is a market town, electoral ward, and civil parish in Somerset, England, on the River Brue and the A359 between Frome and Yeovil. It is 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Shepton Mallet, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill, 10 ...

. The station is on the Bristol to Weymouth line some south of Bath Spa. Trains on the

Reading to Taunton 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) ...

pass through the station but do not normally stop. Services are operated by

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 ...

(who also manage the station) and South Western Railway.

History

The station was opened by the

on 1 September 1856 on its Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth main line. At that time this was just a single track but a loop was provided at Bruton to allow trains to pass. Stone buildings were erected on both platforms, and a footbridge linked the platforms from 1895. 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'' ...

was provided from 1877 at the west end of the station. The goods yard, which was on the north side of the line opposite the signal box, was closed on 5 April 1965 and the station was downgraded to an unstaffed halt from 6 October 1969 under 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 ...

Stationmasters

*John George Indermaur 1856 - 1862 (formerly station master at Keynsham) *William Matthew Mitcham 1863 - 1865 (formerly station master at Maiden Newton, afterwards station master at Frome) *William Edward Bock 1865 - 1866 (afterwards station master at Maiden Newton) *Alfred James 1869 - ca. 1871 *Walter Titball 1874 - 1882 (formerly station master at Yeovil) *Arthur Percy Dagg 1882 - ca. 1895 (formerly station master at Maiden Newton) *Thomas William Wood from 1898 (formerly station master at Malmesbury) *Herbert Edwin Matthews from 1908 *G.E. Nailor 1925 - 1927 (afterwards station master at Castle Cary) *Godfrey Beaconsfield Taylor ca. 1929 ca. 1931 *G. Bennett from 1947 (formerly station master at Hullavington) W. Wilcox for six years in charge of the goods department at Warminster is reported as being appointed stationmaster in 1888 however, Arthur Dagg is still recorded as station master in the GWR Register of Clerks in 1890 and in the 1891 census.

Facilities

The station has two platforms with a modern glass-and-metal waiting shelter on each. A footbridge enables passengers to cross the line. There is no wheelchair access to the far platform (for trains arriving from Bristol and going to Weymouth). The station has a bike rack and help points.

Location

The cutting in which the railway is built is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

as one of the best places in England to demonstrate the stratigraphic distinction of

ammonite Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) ...

s in the subcontractus zone and the morrisi zone.

Services

Great Western Railway operates eight trains each way on the Bristol to Weymouth line during the week and five on Sundays. It is not a regular service; there are some gaps of up to three hours between trains. To the north services run to and from and via . Most are extended beyond Bristol to and from . To the south trains run to and .National Rail Timetable (May 2016), Table 123 A faster and more frequent service to London is available at station from where Great Western Railway operates trains into .

References

External links

Bruton - Least Used Station in Somerset
2018 YouTube film about the station and its status as the station with lowest passenger numbers in Somerset {{Somerset railway stations Railway stations in Somerset Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1856 Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations served by Great Western Railway Bruton Railway stations served by South Western Railway DfT Category F1 stations