{"id":5144,"date":"2011-09-26T11:30:02","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T10:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=5144"},"modified":"2011-09-27T21:49:29","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T20:49:29","slug":"cirencester-town-disused-railway-station-victorian-gothic-stuck-in-a-car-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/cirencester-town-disused-railway-station-victorian-gothic-stuck-in-a-car-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Cirencester Town disused railway station – Victorian Gothic stuck in a car park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Now stranded in the middle of a car park in the centre of town is the remains of\u00a0Cirencester Town railway station, a rather fine two-storey building designed by Isambard Kingdon Brunel and R.P. Brereton, his resident assistant.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Opened by the\u00a0Cheltenham and Great Western Union<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a031st May 1843, Cirencester was the terminus of a four mile, broad gauge single line from Kemble. The line was swiftly\u00a0absorbed\u00a0 by the Great Western Railway within a month or so of opening.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Renamed Cirencester Town in July 1924, the station boasted an extensive layout, with the single passenger platform being\u00a0supplemented\u00a0by large two road goods shed,\u00a0a single road engine shed,\u00a0cattle pens, a wagon loading bay, four storage sidings and an intriguing-sounding pig wharf.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/a><\/p>\n

Trackplan detail from [Great Western Archive<\/a>] – click on the image for a larger version of the graphic.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

The station originally boasted a\u00a0small overall roof, but this was replaced\u00a0by\u00a0a\u00a0standard\u00a0canopy in 1874, leaving the building looking oddly slender.<\/p>\n

Note the\u00a0shortened remains of the passenger platform in the photo above.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Cirencester Town\u00a0is a good example of\u00a0Victorian railway\u00a0Gothic\u00a0– my\u00a0favourite\u00a0architecture!<\/p>\n

The station enjoyed a partial\u00a0rebuilding in 1956, with architect\u00a0 H. Cavanagh taking care to match the\u00a0existing\u00a0building by using Bath stone for a\u00a0new ticket office and waiting room.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Despite the investment, the line was still threatened with closure in 1959, with British Rail\u00a0Western Region attempting to bring down costs by introducing a diesel rail bus service.<\/p>\n

By all accounts, this was something of a success, prompting the opening of new halts at\u00a0Chesterton Lane in 1959 and Park Leaze a year later.<\/p>\n

It seems that this still wasn’t enough to save the line, and despite a concerted local campaign, passenger services were withdrawn on 6th April 1964, followed by complete closure \u00a0on the 4th\u00a0October 1965.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Early 1960s view, showing the railbus dwarfed by the station building. You can see the engine shed to the far right with the goods shed behind the railbus.\u00a0[via<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Similar modern view – the 1956 extension is to the left.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Although it looks in fairly ropey condition today with some tatty modern additions, the\u00a0station is a Grade II listed building.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

A small section of the platform still exists. Shame the trains have gone.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Platform detail showing\u00a0closed\u00a0up entrances..<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Bricked up entrance to the original booking hall.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Looking towards the junction at Kemble.<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Archive view from 1958 [via<\/a>].<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

\"Disused<\/p>\n

Although the\u00a0Gloucestershire\u00a0market town was once served by three stations, none survive at Cirencester, with the nearest railhead now being Kemble, some four miles\u00a0distant.<\/p>\n

There are no plans to rebuild a railway into Cirencester.<\/p>\n

More disused railway features<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

References: [Cirencester and Tetbury Branches<\/a>] – [Great Western Archive<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now stranded in the middle of a car park in the centre of town is the remains of\u00a0Cirencester Town railway station, a rather fine two-storey building designed by Isambard Kingdon … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,193,90],"tags":[417,418,215,1200,207],"class_list":["post-5144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photos","category-places","category-railways","tag-cirencester","tag-cotswolds","tag-disused-station","tag-railways","tag-station"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/cirencester-town-railway-station-01.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-1kY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5144"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5152,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions\/5152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}