Small Histories 4

Being brief accounts of episodes, incidents and characters from here and hereabouts complete with facts and imaginings.

SMALL HISTORY Number 4 - March 2010

The Slow Train from Drimpton

With the opening of the Yeovil to Exeter section of the London south Western Railway in July 1860, the chance to catch a train came within four miles of Drimpton. Yet for some people this was not near enough.

In 1863, the Chard Road and Lyme Regis Harbour Railway Company announced a railway to link the two towns of Chard and Lyme. This line was to pass through and serve the following – though it is hard to say what the precise route was going to be. There were Chard and Crewkerne in Somerset, Axminster and Uplyme in Devon, and all of the following in Dorset (or, at least, in Dorset in 1863) – Wambrook, Chardstock, Thorncombe, Hawkchurch, Whitchurch Canonicorum, Charmouth, Monkton Wyld, Lyme Regis, Catherstone, Burstock, Broadwindsor, Pilsdon, Childhay, Drimpton, Dibberford and Littlewindsor. It comes as a surprise to read of Burstock, Broadwindsor, Childhay, Drimpton and Littlewindsor all appearing on the route of a railway – a list of place names as enchanting and evocative as any sung by Flanders & Swann. It is worth a moment to ask: “What if?” Certainly, such a line would have been closed by Dr Beeching in the 1960s. But for a moment let us imagine catching the 9.17am from Drimpton Halt heading for the coast via Burstock, Childhay, Hawkchurch and all the rest. Steaming along, sending cattle running. With the window down and our heads popped out. With a face getting smut-stained. But we don’t mind. In autumn, waving to a ploughman driving his horses across a field. In summer, watching the hay being cut. In winter, clutching a stone hot water bottle to keep the cold at bay. In spring, admiring the wild daffodils and catching the scent of the bluebells in Marshwood Vale. At all times trailing clouds of steam and smoke rivalling the clouds in the sky. Before, finally, reaching the sea!

But it was not to be.

Almost thirty years pass before another attempt is made – or, before another attempt that we know of is made. It is 1891. The project is aired in the schoolroom in Broadwindsor and reported in the Bridport News on December 4^th. Among those present were farmers, William Dommett of Broadwindsor, J Fowler of Burstock, J H Creed of Burstock Grange, and T Forsey of Hursey. Also there were Joseph Hurding, builder and publican at the Royal Oak, Drimpton, Randolph Meech, canvas manufacturer’s clerk at Yarn Barton Mill, and T Greening, leader of the Broadwindsor Band.

The route this time was to connect Bridport to the LSW via Netherbury, Beaminster and Broadwindsor. The Rev Farrer was in the chair and said how difficult it was to get to Crewkerne station – being a journey of some six miles. He also ‘noticed how the population of the agricultural districts had decreased of late years, and observed that a railway would doubtless bring many back again, for farmers and manufacturers around would have an opportunity of developing their resources, which meant more work and bigger wages.’ The meeting heard others say that farmers ‘would be better able to dispose of their produce’. Can we hear the farmers there crying, ‘Hear! Hear!’? And it was said shopkeepers would benefit as the carriage of goods would be cheaper than by road. The Rev Robertson said: ‘None could help being benefited by a railway through Broadwindsor’. What, nobody? Was that really the case? Did everyone greet the prospect of a railway running through the parish so positively? Didn’t anyone stand up to say that with such a railway so close at hand even more people would pack up, hop on a train, never to return? Let alone the noise, the disruption, the progress!

But again the venture did not get off the ground. And, with the arrival of the motor car, all thought of a railway was shelved forever.   

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