Adelstrop

Somewhere under this disused railway station in Bath, a massive steam-train rusts away, lying on it's side in the dark.

The Somerset and Dorset line which terminated here was axed by Beeching in a shocking act of corporate vandalism, and now the terminus is used as a car-park. On the last sunday of every month, it is also used as a flea-market, which is what you can see going on in this photo. Spot the 'No Smoking' sign (s) in the foreground. You wouldn't want smoke in a railway station, would you?

The line was created by Brunel, and went all the way down to the south coast. Some small stretches of it have been reinstated by rail nutters who run little steam-locamotives up and down them - arguing constantly about who is going to drive, or even who is going to be allowed on the footplate.

Criss-crossing the various highways and byways along it's route, numerous features of the old line sporadically appear - a massive stretch of steep embankment, now used as a cycle path; a crumbling, brick-built viaduct with ivy hanging from it's walls, spanning a little section of valley road with an ancient castle nearby.

Ok, I know it is a different line, but I found myself in Adelstrop once, on a sleepy and hot summer afternoon, and I remembered the poem below by Edward Thomas - well, parts of it anyway. The end of steam and the end of the line makes this poem even more evocative.

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

the name, because one afternoon

of heat the express-train drew up there

unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came.

On the bare platform, what I saw

was Adlestrop—only the name.

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

and meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

no whit less still and lonely fair

than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

close by, and round him, mistier,

farther and farther, all the birds

of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.