The Monday Photo

Just on the left is where Winslow’s new railway station is being built.

It will give the town access to the East West rail project, and if you compare the photo with my more recent one of the recently cleared railway cutting, you’ll realise how overgrown it had become.

When I took this photo a dozen years ago I had no idea that the line was to be reopened. I had no idea that the iron footbridge I took this photo from was going to be demolished, either.

The brick bridge in the background is the one at the top of Winslow on the road to Buckingham.

This was the Buckinghamshire Railway. The first Winslow station was about a quarter of a mile beyond that bridge. It opened to passengers on 1st May 1850, and goods traffic began a fortnight later. The station would have sidings and a goods shed, and be quite an important station on the line.

At first the railway just connected Winslow with Bletchley and Banbury, but a year later the line to Oxford was finished and opened. The lines joined at Claydon Junction, renamed Verney Junction.

Winslow’s first station closed on 1st January 1968. I was eight, and unlike some boys I had little interest in trains. But I do remember walking across the fields to the iron bridge and watching the goods trains go by. In May 1993 the line closed to all traffic, after 145 years of service.

I was sorry to see the old iron footbridge go; it had been a landmark for me; a destination. It’s sad to see things from our childhood change or disappear, but this has always happened.

It might help to remember that whatever they are replaced with, it will be shaped by what had been before.

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