Tracing the Somerset & Dorset Railway from Evercreech Junction to Cole скачать в хорошем качестве

Tracing the Somerset & Dorset Railway from Evercreech Junction to Cole

In this, my third video, tracing the remains of the Somerset & Dorset in my area, I walk from Evercreech Junction to Cole to try and discover what can still be seen of the S&DJR, between Evercreech Junction and Cole station. At Evercreech, the station house remains as a private residence but there is little else there since the whole site has become a large industrial estate. I did walk to where the branch line to Highbridge diverged from the main line to Bath and remnants of both routes can still be seen, mostly defined by trees and hedgerows as long as you know where to look. From Evercreech I then tried to follow footpaths that were not always as shown on my old OS map, with stiles that were broken or had been moved or were missing completely. As such I made more of a detour than I had planned and this took me away from the trackbed in quite a few places. Between Evercreech and Cole there were several bridges, with the first one being at Pecking Mill, which is actually to the north of the Junction, and I believe it is Nº 106. The next bridge that I visit is Nº 115 at Wyke which means there were eight in between that, clearly, no longer exist. These must include one that would have carried the line over the River Allam, which is really no more than a brook, as noted during my walk. The final bridge before Cole station was Nº 120, over Sunny Lane and I think this was destroyed, along with Cole Viaduct, in 1984. As well as the bridges, there were also four level crossings, with the first being across the A371, at Evercreech Junction. Then they are at Lamyatt, Bruton Road and East Hill. Lamyatt and Bruton Road both had crossing keeper's cottages although only the one at Lamyatt still survives. The crossing at East Hill was across a farm track so this would almost certainly have been unmanned. Finally, between Lamyatt Crossing and Bridge Nº 118, over the GWR main line, the trackbed has largely been returned to farmland with little evidence that it ever existed.