Cornwood railway station was a former railway station located in the village of

Cornwood Cornwood is a village and civil parish in the South Hams in Devon, England. The parish has a population of 988. The village is part of the electoral ward called ''Cornwood'' and Sparkwell. The ward population at the 2011 census was 2,321. Blac ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

on the South Devon Main Line between

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

and

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...

. It was constructed a few years after the opening of the stretch of line. The station was built at Cornwood by George Hennet. It was opened in 1852 and operated by him on behalf of the South Devon Railway until January 1857 when the railway company took over. Until 1864 it was known as "Cornwood Road". An

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 ...

building on the north side of the single track housed a booking office and waiting room on the ground floor, with accommodation above for the station master. It was situated in a cutting in the mile between Blatchford and Slade viaducts. The line was doubled from Hemerdon to Cornwood on 16 May 1893 and 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 opened at the east end of the station. The double line was extended to Blatchford viaduct on 19 November 1893. This doubling required the construction of a new platform for westbound (down) trains. The station closed for passenger trains on 2 March 1959. A loop line was provided to the east of the platform for up trains which was closed on 26 February 1962; the signal box was kept in use until 26 February 1963. The London bound platform and station building can still be seen from passing trains.

References

Bibliography

* Gregory, Roy. ''The South Devon Railway''. Oakwood Press, 1982. * Jenkins, Stanley C. & Loader, Martin. ''The Great Western Railway Volume Two Bristol to Plymouth''. Amberley Publishing, 2014. * MacDermot, Edward Terence. ''History of the Great Western Railway, Volume 2''. I. Allan, 1964. {{end box Disused railway stations in Devon Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1852 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1959 1852 establishments in England