A new heritage project !

A new project for our heritage group, and a new title for the blog. This reflects the continuing aim of the heritage group to bring improved GWR heritage to the railway. There will be further projects! Hayles Abbey halt was the beginning.

Our little GWR halt is a year old now, up and running, and seeing lots of use. The bridge and the halt are very attractive to lineside photographers.

We've been promised a corrugated iron lamp hut for it so that we can store a lawnmower and some small tools, so that is a job still to do. The hut is reserved for us and is just waiting for its current owner to finish using it.

But in the meantime we have found a new heritage project. It's the recovery and rebuild at Winchcombe of the weighbridge building at Usk. It's taken a long time to get the project up and running, but not for want of trying. Several other ideas were floated, but failed for various reasons beyond our control. Now we have approval, and the paperwork is done. Usk is on !

In fact Usk station, opened in 1856 as part of a line form Pontypool to Monmouth Troy, is an old friend of the railway, as we already have the goods crane, now located at Toddington, and a corrugated iron halt, now located at Hayles Abbey. The weighbridge building is made of the same pinkish sandstone as Monmouth Troy station that is now at Winchcombe, so it's a lovely fit.

When we first investigated the building, it was completely covered in vegetation.

Here it is, seen from the vehicle side. The lintel over the big window has failed, allowing some of the stones to fall out.

This is a view of the other side. The chimney is visible in both pictures. It is made of blue engineering bricks.

Finally, a view from the main road. The door is on the left, and on the right of the picture was once the table on which vehicles stood to be weighed. It was removed a long time ago. We will recover what is left of the mechanism (most of it in fact) but we have no firm plans for it.

Winchcombe already has its original GWR brick built weighbridge, all intact.



Usk station, like Broadway, was in two parts. There was a passenger side on one side of the river Usk, and a goods yard on the other side of the river (and road). The large, brick built goods shed is still there, and closely resembles the examples on the Honeybourne line. It might also be available...

We've had a couple of working parties down there to do a bit of initial surveying and clearance.  This picture shows most of the greenery removed. In the foreground is the main road, and in the background you can see the goods shed peeking out from behind the stone building. The two seem to be of different eras.

Here's the entrance view, with the shadow pointing to the location of the weighing table, now gone.

The other side of the building, seen from the yard. There are two small windows, and a large one.

Inside, the building is of undressed stone, with a flagstone floor. There's a fireplace in the corner, for those cold Welsh winters.

Outside there are dressed quoins on the corners.

The roof is a very simple truss structure, covered in slates. Most of these are still present.

During our last visit the site was made secure with Heras fencing, and there followed a long period for the preparation of the paperwork. But we have got there! The railway's heritage group has lots of different skills, and our retired builders look forward to putting this back together again with the correct lime mortar.

If anyone has more pictures of this area, we would be pleased to hear from you. (breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk).

The new location at Winchcombe is adjacent to the barrow crossing at the northern end of platform 2. The area will be landscaped, and opened to visitors. We would like to give the building a meaning at its new location, and our idea is to turn it into a goods office, or coal merchant's office, with a few period attributes scattered around it. There is also an idea for a short platform and some goods vehicles parked in it.

Here is a shot of where it will go:

Basically, behind the Toad, with the platform area behind P2 extended up to the oak tree. The barrow crossing will cut the two areas in half, with a new goods area to be fashioned by the oak tree. We hope the oak tree will survive, because currently all the oak trees seem to be dying. What is happening to them all?

We will update when the first retrieval mission is completed, in about 3 weeks.