The thumbnails on this page below the text, all relate to the Honeybourne & Cheltenham line whilst it was part of the national network or after its abandonment on sections not then owned by the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway plc.

The Honeybourne and Cheltenham line was built during the first decade of the 20th Century which saw a vast programme of works to improve the infrastructure of the Great Western Railway. This decade also saw the new direct line from Paddington to Birmingham via High Wycombe brought into use as well as the direct link to the Severn Tunnel via Badminton and the new main line to West Country from Reading to Taunton via Westbury, both the latter avoiding congestion on the route through Bristol.

Most of these lines proved to be long term improvements to the national railway network and survive into the 21st century, whilst the Honeybourne line only made sense in terms of competition between private company\’s and ultimately suffered the fate of being the second best alternative in national terms of a route between Birmingham & Cheltenham, with its complete removal after about 70 years of use.

The route of the Honeybourne line was selected by Mr George William Blackall an employee of the Great Westen Railway, who was at one time the chief parliamentary assistant to the general manager Mr James C Inglis.

The line was opened in stages southwards from Honeybourne, with Weston-sub-Edge and Broadway stations opening to traffic on 1st August 1904, Willersey Halt around 2 months later, Toddington station on 1st December 1904, Winchcombe station on 1st February 1905, Laverton Halt on 14th August 1905, Gretton Halt, Gotherington and Bishops Cleeve stations on 1st June 1906, and Malvern Road station in Cheltenham just south of the junction with the new line on 30th March 1908. A halt was opened at Cheltenham High Street on 1st October 1908 but only lasted until 30th April 1917; Cheltenham Race Course station opened on the 12th March 1912 and survived longest in use receiving race specials right up to 1976 apart from the years 1969 & 1970; and Hayles Abbey Halt was opened on 24th September 1928 at the time the museum was opened on the abbey site.

Part of the route from Honeybourne to Cheltenham lay beneath the Cotswold escarpment, in particular, the section from Broadway to Bishops Cleeve. In certain areas the line became a linear barrier, restricting the natural flow of water from the Cotswold hills. For this reason good drainage allowing the water to pass under the line was necessary. Even so the stability of the line has been problematic over the years with several landslips occurring. The route was engineered such that there were no major gradients encountered other than a short half mile stretch of 1 in 116 just before arriving into Cheltenham Spa Malvern Road station. Much of the route was therefore reasonably flat requiring a number of embankments and cuttings to be created. One significant viaduct at Stanway was built along with two tunnels, one at Greet and one at Hunting Butts. A further significant brick structure was built to carry the line on an elevated section through the northern suburbs of Cheltenham, just prior to reaching Malvern Road station.

The major mishap during the construction of the line was the collapse of 4 arches of the partially built Stanway Viaduct. This was due to the removal of the wooden formers supporting the brick arches before the mortar had properly dried exacerbated by a steam crane working on top of them. The local newspaper picture shows the situation prior to the collapse.

A gradient profie of the line between Honeybourne and Cheltenham is shown below. The route mileage indicated starts from Birmingham Snow Hill station via the North Warwickshire line and Stratford-on-Avon.

Gotherington station was closed first on 13th June 1955, with all remaining stations & halts north of Malvern Road station closing when the local passenger service was withdrawn from the 7th March 1960. Freight facilities remained at Bishops Cleeve, Winchcombe, Toddington, & Broadway after the passenger services ceased but these were progressively withdrawn through the 1960s with Toddington being the last to close from 2nd January 1967.

The line remained in use for through freight traffic that could not be accommodated on the route through Lansdown, for diverted passenger trains when engineering needs made this necessary, and for the occasional race day train to Cheltenham Race Course. On the 25th August 1976 the 6.35am Toton to Severn Tunnel Junction freight suffered a derailment approaching Winchcombe goods shed that caused severe damage to the track. Although this was repaired British Rail decided to close the line to traffic and all tracks were eventually lifted during 1979/80.

A view showing the derailment at Winchcombe which led to the closure of the line in August 1976. Photo Steve Humphries.

A timetable extract dated the 6th October 1947 is shown below for the services that operated between Cheltenham and Honeybourne, just prior to the nationalisation of the railways in Britain.

Some publicity by the Great Western Railway dating from 1925 and 1934 illustrate the many attractions Cheltenham offered to the visiting public.

We hereby acknowledge the assistance of Audie Baker and his book, "An Illustrated History of the Stratford on Avon to Cheltenham Railway" (out of print) published by Irwell Press in 1994, in providing much information for these pages.