Railway Heritage Walk, Itchen Abbas
Despite the poor weather forecast we met at the Itchen Abbas Village Hall on a dry and sunny Sunday morning at 10am. We were joined by 17 people, some of which were local and some from much further afield from Devon, Cornwall and Essex, here visiting relatives. Myself and fellow Trustees Jackie Porter and Clive Cook greeted the walkers. We proceeded to walk up the main road towards Station Approach, I pointed out that the house at the bottom of the hill was once the Village Hall. On reaching Station Road we stopped while everyone caught up from the climb of the hill and I talked about the Station approach as it was when the station existed, showing an old photo of the original station building.
We then set off again along the main road for a short while turning right on the track up to the old railway line where we continued along the track until we reached the remaining telegraph pole. Chris Cornell pointed out the interesting fact that the wooden cross beams on the telegraph pole were always fixed to the London side of the pole, thus giving you a sense of direction if you were lost. After chatting about the history of the line (which opened on 2 October 1895 and only took 2 years to build!) we turned and went back towards Itchen Abbas. We reached the back gate of the house which occupies the site of the original Itchen Abbas station. The owners of the house had kindly given us permission to go into the garden to view the original station platforms. The gate led through a mature bush into the garden which was like stepping back in time revealing the splendid platforms. The owners has also recently purchased and erected a fully working signal, complete with the oil lamp. We looked at the platforms and compared them to old photographs which I passed around. The walkers were very interested and commented that it was like a hidden gem which they might never get the chance to see again. We all posed for a group photograph and then after thanking the owners with a round of applause we left the garden through the gate where we entered. We went back to the road and walked back to Station approach. This time we continued up the approach where we stopped again and looked at the photos of the original station, trying to imagine what it was like. Then we walked into what was the goods yard past the new houses onto the area in front of the railway cottages.
Number 2 Railway cottages is where my grandparents lived. My Grandad was a Platelayer on the line for 42 year and he and my nan, Rose, brought up 4 children in this small 2 bedroom house. We stopped and talked about my personal experiences of visiting during the school summer holidays arriving on the train. I think everyone enjoyed bringing the buildings to life with personal stories from the past. We then continued through a garden of a house, whose the owners had very kindly given us permission, to meet up with the old path that went along the back of the railway cottages. This path is where my mum and her brothers took the route to Itchen Abbas School every day. The path came out at the bridge on the Northington Road.
We stopped at the road near the bridge to marvel at the magnificent Viaduct. We passed around an old photograph of the time when the bridge was being constructed and cut out of the chalk terrain. We then went back long Northington Road toward the Village Hall where we ended the walk. We received lots of positive comments and everyone went away very happy.
Stephen Jeffery, Trustee and Walk leader
