Britford
00, Great Western Railway, 8 @ 3 foot
haftesbury, in its
time a major market town but owing to its position on top of a ridge the railway passed to the north condemning it to relative
decline. To overcome the isolation there were proposals to build a branch line
to Shaftesbury local topography meant there would have been three possible
routes. The first route is a short branch from Semley via a halt at Motcombe to
a station 110 meters/360 feet below the town centre with either a triangular
junction allowing through working or an east facing junction for trains to/from
the junction station and/or Salisbury. The second route a seven mile long branch
following the River Nadder from a junction west of Tisbury to a terminus near
Coppice Street. If either (or both!) of the first two branches were built they
would have become part of the Southern Railway as they sprang from the
Salisbury-Exeter mainline. The third route is twenty-one mile long from
Salisbury crossing the Avon following the Ebble Valley to Alvesdiston and then
meandered across the Downs to Shaftesbury. This was proposed in 1875 and given
it started at Salisbury the branch might have fallen into the hands of the Great
Western Railway, Southern Railway or both – a joint line.
I’ve assumed that the line was built and fell into the
hands of the Great Western Railway. Just South of Salisbury the line would have
passed through the small village of Britford nestling on the flood plain of the
Avon. The land round Britford is cut by many drainage channels & ditches.
Britford would have been served by what the Great Western Railway termed a
platform (less than a station more than a halt) handling passengers and parcels
traffic. Much of the parcels traffic would have been milk and watercress. There
are private siding serving an agricultural equipment dealer & repairer and a
mileage siding. Mileage traffic was loaded and unloaded by customers rather than
railway staff and the railways charged for the distance the goods travelled so
much per mile hence the name.
A GWR auto train
A GWR Goods train
Agricultural equipment dealer & repairer
Shunting the
agricultural equipment dealer & repairer
Shunting the mileage siding The level crossing
The Bridge
Panaramics of
the layout
Track plan
Photos of the layout under construction
At the end of Week 3
At the end of Week 2
At the end of Week 1