Rural Wandering: a cycle along the old Newbury to Winchester railway

With just a short period of time on my hands before I had to drive off to a family birthday party yesterday, I decided to take myself off on a more modest bike ride than my 57 mile epic of last week, and head out to the disused Newbury to Winchester railway for both some cycling and some rural wandering. Closed to passengers and then freight in the 1960's, much of this old railway has now been used to for the Newbury bypass, but there are some sections remaining which have been converted into footpaths and cycle paths, and fortunately some of these sections are close to where I live. This set of photos comes from the section of the line between Burghclere and Old Burghclere.

 

Approaching Old Burghclere station from the north

Platform at Old Burghclere station

 Looking north through Old Burghclere station

In this shot the platforms can still both be clearly seen, and the station building itself, now converted into a house. As I cycled past I caught a glimpse of people, presumably the owners, sitting at a table on what once was the platform, having a coffee.

Old Burghclere station

Just to the south of Old Burghclere station is an abandoned signal box. When I've cycled along here previously, the signal box has largely been obscured by bags of some sort of farm produce, but today these had been cleared away, giving a near perfect view. This signal box would presumably have been used to ensure safe movement of trains through the station and also into and out of the goods yard.

Abandoned signal box just south of Old Burghclere station

Abandoned signal box just south of Old Burghclere station

I even managed to sneak inside briefly.

Abandoned signal box just south of Old Burghclere station

This next picture is again of Old Burghclere station itself, but this time from the front.

The front of Old Burghclere station

 

And further along the bike ride, we have the somewhat confusingly named Highclere station, which is actually in Burghclere. This is also a private residence now and only the front can be seen from the road. A great place to live I should imagine.

The front of Highclere station