Last visit to Swanbourne

Saturday at Swanbourne

Our last day on this interesting site, on the path of the reactivation of the former 'Varsity Line' between Oxford and Cambridge.

The stationmaster's house (L) and wooden booking office (R) have now been surrounded by Heras fencing, and demolition is imminent as the little pair of buildings seems to be attracting the attentions of undesirables.

Swanbourne station on 5th September 2020.

 

 

 

This may be the last photograph ever taken of it, so enjoy. The stationmaster's house is amazingly higgeldy-piggeldy, with an unusual lintel over the front door, made out of two corbels.

The station from the rear

This is the station from the trackbed, with a number of sheds at this end, erected by the last occupant.

This is a detail of the wooden booking office, and there is a strange gable end in the middle, with a flat roof just below it. All very odd.

We have not been able to find any takers for the 100 stone blocks that edge the original platform.

There is some interest in parts of the booking office, but the whole building is felt to be a step too far.

 

On this our last day we came to collect the last 100 bull nosed blocks, making nearly 800 of them shuttled back to Winchcombe. It's a two way win situation, the donor reduces his landfill requirements, and we get 800 diamond cut blocks for the Usk platform and the future turntable.

While John and yours truly drove the Transit up from Winchcombe, Jim and Roger, who live locally, were already on site and in the 90 minutes it took us to get there they managed to clean a large number of the bricks we came to load. That made such a difference to stacking them, and even to the weight we had to carry.

With 4 volunteers on the job the van was loaded in just a few minutes, so before leaving we had a wander down the trackbed, where, we had heard, a special building had been erected (at some expense) to re-house the bats thought to reside in the roof of the booking office. This has several missing slates.

Notice also the plastic sheeting on the left, erected to allow the site to be cleared of invertebrates.

Here's the double track trackbed in the Bletchley direction, with Swanbourne station on the right.

There are no other houses here at all, which is why the stop will not be rebuilt. No one lives here, Swanbourne is nearly 2 miles away and anyway Winslow, the next station, will be rebuilt and that serves quite a big and indeed growing community.

 

 

So below is the replacement bat residence. Not really what we had expected (what had we expected - not sure - maybe some old garage or something cheap and cheerful with a dark attic and a hole for the bats to fly in and out?)

Purpose built bat residence

Close up of new bat residence

Thanks to Jim we have a close up. Amazingly, this is a pukka brick and timber built cottage with a tiled roof, just for bats to sleep in the roof. There are no windows of course, just a door in the end.

 

Later in the day we met some of the re-housing people, here on one of their regular trips up and down the trackbed picking up invertebrates. The site is screened with plastic to stop any new ones from coming in, and squares of black sheets have been laid out to encourage any invertebrates to hide underneath. These are checked regularly, and in this way the site is slowly cleared, before the bulldozers come in.

Today's haul was not so big, just a mature and a juvenile lizzard. Presumably the several previous visits already cleared most of what was there.

The catches are taken to a different site and there released. 

Strangely, no slow worms at all have been found. 

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the farm...

We got the last 100 blocks home, and look how much more neatly they stack at the front, than on the pile behind, where they still all have their mortar and bits of reluctant brick on.

We've got our eye on some other stuff, and we'll let you know more when we have some sort of agreement in place. It's hard work, dealing with a bureaucracy.

Broadway cafe open on 2 non-running days

As an experiment the Broadway cafe is now open on Thursdays and Sundays, from 11 am to 4 pm. These are both non-running days, so we hope that blog readers, volunteers, Broadway residents, users of the Caravan Club opposite etc will walk up for a pot of tea and a slice of cake. 

Sunday was the first opening on a non-running day (the cafe is not open on running days as there are no customers at Broadway between the brief periods during which the trains are there).

To keep people further apart there are fewer tables, and each table is sanitised between customers. You can take off your mask (if you are wearing one), it would be difficult to enjoy a slice of cake with a mask on!

 We thoroughly tested the lemon cake...

The sign asks you to leave your contact phone number, this is very common now. It enables us to give you a warning call if Pete should develop a suspicious cough overnight...

 And then enjoy ! We did. We hope to see you soon.

 

 

 

Wednesday on the Usk platform.

The Usk gang is getting back into its stride, with this its third working day on site after our (careful) return to work.

Sadly, yours truly could not attend, as he had to take the 'Diva' (nickname for a large Italian lady of character, which is just like his Italian motorbike) for an examination herself, and quite some distance from Winchcombe too, as it's a rare breed, with only few dealerships. 

 

 

Julian very kindly took these shots for the blog, so that you can all see what we are building.

John here has made himself a tall tower of cleaned bricks, and in this way he can work on, without having to lean over all the time.

John plugged away all day long, but as you can see in the foreground, there are plenty more bricks to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few weeks back Blogger changed to a new format, and this is causing us difficulties with placing the pictures. It seems to be impossible to place two next to each other, so you will just have to accept them in a series, for which we apologise.

 

 

 

The job today was to complete the brick laying on the main platform. There were 1 1/2 courses left to do last time. Dave and Paul can be seen here, each with his own little pile of blues and a board of fresh mortar.

 

 

 

 

Gradually they worked towards each other.

 

Paul could see what was coming (less than a brick's length) so he cut one brick in half.

 

 

 

 

Here's Paul doing the honours - the last brick on the final course, row 12. 

Notice how the blocks at this point are lower than the wall in front, we still need to address that with something to fill in the difference.

Here's your goods platform wall then - the front is complete, just a bit more pointing left to do.

Chip-chip-chip goes John in the background....

The Paul climbed up on the wall for a survey of the scene.

At this end, the block wall at the rear is OK for height, it's level with the bricks in front here. You could put the edging blocks on here, no trouble.

A look along the completed wall, and on the right, a try out of how it might look with one of the Swanbourne edging blocks, with the rear propped up on an offcut. Imagine 250 of those in a row. Well, that's the plan anyway.

In the afternoon Paul started on building the facing wall round the stop block.

That's a bit more complicated, as it has 4 faces, and we're all keen to see how that will be dealt with, particularly at the upper level with the blocks facing this way and that. The area behind the wall in the picture needs to be back filled. It was always a bit of a dodgy cavity on this corner, when you drove past in any vehicle. With the wall the cavity will be filled in and the whole area stabilised, with a  broader roadway.

We're running two trains at the moment, and Julian captured both, although as mentioned above, Blogger seems reluctant to show them next to each other.

Dinmore Manor on train 1

35006 P&O on train 2

The Bulleid Pacific is always an impressive machine, and is wont to fill the whole viewfinder of your camera!

 

 

 

For sale

A barn find, well almost.

A collection of German steam loco cabsides, accumulated over 35 years of living abroad:

All are genuine, except 65 018, which is a big preserved tank engine which had no number plates when it entered preservation. The plate came off the smokebox door of the preserved engine, and has thus run on the Dutch main line. 

Expressions of interest to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk. 

Alternatively these can go into auction, but with fees for both vendor and purchaser. Let's save that commission ! Hope to hear from you then.