Cirencester for its size is unusual as it’s a Cotswold town without any train station serving it today. This is especially odd given that once upon a time, there used to be three stations which served the town. Today, only one of those still survives and is receiving some much needed care and attention. What’s more, for one weekend only, it’s open to the public to see inside the station and the state of restoration works to date and the scale of the task ahead.
Originally opened with the name ‘Cirencester‘ in 1841 by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway, it was renamed to ‘Cirencester Town‘ in 1924. The station was part of the Cirencester branch line which ran for five miles to connect to the town of Kemble which already had rail links to other nearby stations like Swindon. The C&GWUR did originally have the intention of linking Cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon together but found it very hard to raise the finances for the construction required and as a result, only part of the line was opened between Swindon and Cirencester in 1841, before selling the business to the Great Western Railway. The line was originally built as a broad gauge line but GWR undertook a widespread conversion to what we now call standard gauge in 1872.
The branch line supported busy passenger and goods traffic to begin with, but this declined in the 1930s and closure was threatened in the 1950s. As a way to reduce costs, lightweight four-wheeled diesel railbuses were introduced which kept the line going for a time, but eventually, it closed to passengers in 1964 with good services finishing the following year. Remarkably, although in a state of decay, the station still stands today and is the focus of preservation efforts to restore. Below you can see two similar images of the station. One taken just before closure in the 1960s and the second is mine from this visit today. As you can see, many of the original features still exist today and are distinctly recognisable.
It was Isambard Kingdom Brunel who designed Cirencester’s station as a small but grand terminus with classical pillars, concealed guttering, large fanlights and an impressive boardroom which we will see more of later. Heading inside the station today, you start to get a flavour of what it used to be like. The ground floor is littered with architectural drawings of the original station as well as photos over the years showing the evolution of the station and train traffic it used to receive. From the drawings, you can see that there used to be a large overall canopy which covered the station and tracks but sadly this was removed in 1874.
Heading up the stairs to the first floor we find a small bedroom accommodation but the standout room is what would have been the old board room. It’s said that Brunel wanted a base that was outside of London on the Great Western Railway for the GWR directors and so chose to build one at Cirencester Town station since it was a terminus anyway. Directors would meet here to discuss where they would build next along the line and work on the challenges some of the railway had to overcome. The huge bay windows overlook part of the railway and would have provided a slight view of trains coming and going station. As you can see, the board room is in dire need of repairs with parts of the ceiling exposed in parts and the walls incredibly crumbly and flakey. In the picture below on the left, if you look to the far left corner of the room, that hole in the ceiling is the one which is shown in the photo to the right. The board room also used to have a large fireplace, most likely on the left hand wall pictured below but this has long since gone.
The video below shows you the rest of the first floor and the small accommodation room that exists.
On the second floor is more room accommodation. There are a variety of smaller sized rooms but the largest one is at the end of the station building which sits directly ontop of where the board room is below. The windows up here let in a good amount of light and the ones at the stairwell side of the building would provide a perfect vantage point to observe the coming and going train traffic. Today the only view is a carpark as the trackbed has long since gone. The video below gives you a little tour going from the first to the second floor.
Heading back down to the ground floor, we make our outside to get a better look at the station building. It’s nice to see the history of the station celebrated with a blue plaque as well.
On the platform level now, you really feel like you are part of history as you can strongly visualise a train pulling into the station terminus here. The train sign below is of course not from Cirencester Town station originally and this actually came from ‘Up’ platform at Kemble station but was moved here after the branch line was closed to preserve.
It was fantastic to be able to see inside this building and to know that there are active preservation and restoration efforts for it. It is highly unlikely that trains will ever call at this station again as there has been too much development around Cirencester now where the trackbed used to be, but I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the station. After finishing with Cirencester Town station, I jumped in the car and drove to Kemble station which is only about 15 minutes away. Kemble station still exists and serves traffic today, but interestingly, the branch line platform and part of the Cirencester branch line still exist at Kemble to this day.
In the photo above on the right, the right hand line is the original Cirencester branch line and still has points which can lead to the branch line if you look beyond the station in the photos below.
The platform at Kemble for the Cirencester branch is out of use and overgrown now. If you were fooled by the pictures above thinking that parts of the Cirencester branch still exist past the platform think again. It’s cut short of the car park at Kemble and I imagine only used today as a siding for freight.
So what about the trains themselves that used to travel on the line? We know that steam was the typical method up until the introduction of the Railbuses in 1959 to try and save the line and reduce costs. Despite initial success, it wasn’t to last and the Railbuses only ran from 1959 to 1965 when the line was closed. Fortunately though, some of these railbuses still exist today in preservation. One such example is kept at the Swindon and Cricklade Railway and on the same weekend, for the only time this year, AC Railbus W79978 was in operation.
In the 1950’s, British Rail tested out a series of small Railbuses who were produced by a variety of manufacturers. Although proving incredibly economical, they were somewhat unreliable and I saw an instance of this first hand while travelling on it as the crew were struggling for some time to get it to engage in the opposite direction to which it travelled. Manufacturers included Bristol/Eastern Coach Works, Park Royal Vehicles, D Wickham & Co and AC Cars which is who built a total of five and it is one of theirs which we travelled on today. It was fantastic to not only see this running, but the opportunity to ride on one is incredibly rare these days. Clearly from the photos above, you can see that it is still in a state of restoration and there is work to do on the interior but it is at least able to travel under its own power. Below you can see it departing Blunsdon station at the Swindon and Cricklade Railway, chock full of passengers!