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Lacock Halt - former TransWilts Station

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2014-03-23 18:57:58 - Graham Ellis

Over the past ten days, years of undergrowth has been cut back along the railway line from Chippenham to Trowbridge, and I've taken the opportunity of a weekend, some sunshine and some nice clouds to take some pictures.

Lacock Halt was situated about 2.5 miles from Chippenham and closed in 1966. Here's the freshly revealed Chippehham-bound platform, showing clearly that the line was originally much wider (it was double track, and the formation is still there for that, and built to Brunel's broad gauge of 7'0.25" rather that the current 4' 8.5". The track has been slewed into the centre here, so would need to to moved to one side if it were ever redoubled, as is happening between Swindon and Kemble in the north of Wiltshire as I write.



From the road, a long level path lead down towards where the Trowbridge-bound platform would have been, and you can see the Chippenham-bound platform again over the tracks. This path, being on railway property, is for rail staff only, but leaning over the fence I got quite a good view. Although the station has been disused for over 45 years, the railway that passes through is very much alive - indeed enjoying a renaissance.



Lacock is famous as a National Trust owned Cotswold village, where many period films are shown. The River Avon, Lacock Abbey, the Fox Talbot museum all attract visitors. And that's the other side of Lacock, away from the station. Backing on to the station - you may see in the pictures above - is something. And that something is the base of Stonegate - "Quality Eggg Production in the UK". Even on Sunday, lorries were rolling around, the car park looked busy ... and passing on the train you'll note this is quite a large site!



Another chracteristic here is electric Pylons and lines that you can't avoid, heading for the Melksham substation. And gloroius conurtyside, but quite remote in many ways and detatched from the tourist trail to Lacock Village, for which the station would not provide a good access point for pedestrians - some sort of link bus would be needed, even if a new station site was selected.



What you do have near the station is quite an area of housing - originally local authority built, perhaps 60 to 70 years only, mostly semidetached properties. You can see some here behind the bus stop, which has five buses call (3 one way, 2 the other) on Monday to Friday mornings. They start just up the road, and run via Zigzag to Corsham, Melksham, Bradford-on-Avon and Trowbridge. A weekly bus, on Fridays, serves Chippenham.