Stogumber Station...

 Introduction

 • Stogumber Station is a small and attractive station in the heart of the Somerset countryside and is situated on the West Somerset Railway in the West of England.

The station has its own car park, which is completely free, and its own attractive gardens and picnic area. The small shop at the station sells a small range of products ranging from Mars Bars to bird boxes, together with many WSR souvenirs.

The station is a popular starting point for walkers and just mile up the road is the beautiful country village of Stogumber where there is a small pub that sells a good selection of meals.

We always welcome visitors and if you are travelling on the West Somerset Railway or if you are on holiday near by please take the time to visit our station.

 A brief history...

The first plans to connect Minehead to the railway system would not have involved Stogumber at all, so we are very lucky to have the railway following the route that it does. In fact the first railway plan was not even designed to be a steam railway!

The railway was planned to connect Minehead to Tiverton and Exeter. This was put forward in 1833 and the idea was for it to be horse-drawn. This plan just fizzled out and was forgotten about as more suggestions were put forward, but it was not until 1856 that a plan was accepted so that work could begin on the West Somerset Railway. It was to be built by the 'West Somerset Railway Company' and the engineer was to be the legendary Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Unfortunately, Brunel did not live long enough to see the line built, as he died on 7 April 1859.

One of the places that expected to benefit the most from the construction of the railway was Watchet. Its harbour was able to hold ships at both high and low tide and as it offered the shortest and one of the safest sea routes to Wales its trade was likely to be greatly increased from the railway.

When the railway was first opened in 1862 the line only went as far as Watchet - the extension to Minehead was opened in 1874.

The station at Stogumber was completed in 1862, originally consisting of a single platform with waiting room - the main station building was on the opposite side of the track (unique on the WSR) - goods shed, with siding, a cattle dock with its own parcels office (which in later years was used to store lamps and oil) and a signal box. The main building comprised a small booking office, booking hall and lavatories. Now only two of the buildings remain and, until fairly recently, only half a platform. The cattle dock can be made out if you look closely, though now various plants of different descriptions have taken over.

More recently lots of improvements have been made to the station. The platform has been extended at the Taunton end and further improvements at the Minehead end are planned. A new platform waiting shelter has also been built. The site of the former goods shed (demolished by British Railways) is now a very attractive picnic area with gardens. The car park has also been resurfaced. We have also had some new fencing in the picnic area erected to go with the platform and to make it safer for children in particular.

Although Stogumber enjoyed a reasonable amount of freight traffic, mainly for local farms and hops for the brewery (now long-gone), in the early 1900's it and Blue Anchor were the least used passenger stations on the line.

When the station was first built it had both a wooden platform and a stone one, the only original bit which remains now is the stone portion, we aren't sure which was put in first but we now think that the reason for there being a wooden platform at one end and a stone at the other is that the bank comes a lot closer to the edge of the platform at the Bishops Lydeard end and so that may be why the much lighter, wooden platform was put in at that end. If you visit the station and get the chance to walk through the gardens then you will see the differences in the types of platform construction very clearly.

The signal box was removed in 1926, at the same time as the one at Washford, due to the lack of traffic on the line, and replaced by ground frames.

For more information on the station, past and present, please come and see us so that we can provide you with more details.

These Stogumber Station notes have been written by Tom Turner.

Last updated: 14 December 2002