I've realised that on either side of the railway and just to the North of the bridge is made up land. The soil for it probably came from the deep cutting to the North of the bridge.

Every map I can find shows the top of this land on both sides to be pretty much flat, and I think this was so that the temporary station could be built here.

Behind this retaining wall, (left) the land between Watling Street, the railway and the road to Simpson was built up to track level. The much larger area built up on the far side of the tracks was, I think, the site of the station and associated buildings.
The Denbigh Hall Inn and some houses or cottages had been on this side of the road, but there’s nothing left to show they were ever there.

With the railway in this locality being either in cuttings or on an embankment away from roads either side of this spot, and with immediate access to the major turnpike of Watling Street, this was the only logical place to put the station. There was even an inn next to the bridge.

The made up land to the West of the tracks isn’t very big; it’s squeezed between the tracks and the road; there’s enough room for maybe just a platform.

But on the other side of the line it was quite a big area, more than enough for another platform, a main but temporary station building, and all the ancillary buildings and stores. There were marquees for passengers to wait in.

Half of this area on the East side was removed some years, to build a large electrical substation.

Another smaller area of raised land is on that same side of the tracks, but on the other side of the old lane to Simpson.

It’s also shown as being flat on the maps, so perhaps a few more temporary buildings were put here. All the built up land around the bridge is now covered with trees and shrubs.

When the number of tracks was doubled to four in about 1881, they were added to the South side of the original tracks, via this diagonal addition to the bridge. (centre left) The accomodation access for Denbigh Hall farm is just beyond the buttress.

The line stopped here because the railway company was having problems completing the tunnel at Kilsby, just this side of Rugby. Passengers travelled on coaches between the two stations for the five months or so before the line was completed.

It’s more than 40 miles from here to Rugby. The company might have stopped the line much closer to the KIlsby tunnel but just a few miles from this bridge, Newport Pagnell and Stony Stratford were important places on the stagecoach network; travellers could get here relatively easily.

But why didn’t the line just stop at Bletchley? There was no station at Bletchley, then a tiny village, and would not be until some months after the line fully opened.

There’s no access to these raised areas of land today; it’s all fenced off as part of the railway system. But it’s amazing what you can find out with some lateral thinking and a few old maps.

Now just used by pedestrians and cyclists going to and from West Bletchley, this was the Watling Street access under the railway for Denbigh Hall farm; it’s a part of the main railway bridge. The farmyard is long gone, the site now lost under the first few houses at the Melrose Avenue end of Spenlows Road. The stream (see the first photo above) ran past the farm on the North side.

On the West Bletchley side where the bridge doesn’t directly support the tracks, there are buttresses with gaps between them. The gaps are hardly noticeable to drivers on Watling Street.

The rear of the train is just about to go over the bridge, which looks very foreshortened in this extreme telephoto lens photo. You can just see the green railings of the bridge behind the “55” sign on the right of the photo.

Looking away from Watling Street, the built up land was on the right of the lane to Simpson, coming into the village over the canal bridge. Some of that lane still exists. Like the railway viaduct at Wolverton when tracks were added in about 1881, a second bridge was added, right next to but not, I believe, built into, this one. It’s to guard against differential settlement.