The Railway comes to Thornbury

Talk by local historian Meg Wise in October 2022. Report by Stephen Griffiths.

By the time the first train rolled in to Thornbury station 150 years ago, 42 years after the Liverpool to Manchester passenger service had kicked off the whole railway boom in 1830, it was hardly cutting edge technology. Nevertheless, it was a grand opportunity for jubilant celebration and festivity in the town. After all, as a local newspaper stated, ‘many of the rustics had never before seen a railway locomotive’. (Thornbury folk don’t get out much.) Our very own roving reporter Meg Wise was on the spot, and with cuttings from contemporary newspapers, brought the October meeting of the Society up to date with the news.

It must be said that not everyone was wildly chuffed about the new railway. Thornbury folk are uniformly fair-minded, and traditionally split 50/50 for and against any change. It had taken the Midland Railway Company five years to build the 7½ miles of track from Yate, and the army of 800 well-paid navvies, although undoubtedly good for local business, could be a disruptive influence. Incidents of poaching and affray increased. Local gentry complained about depredations of their game reserves. A silk rabbiting net 140 yards long was confiscated. Fines for affray would be issued to people with suspicious names like John Bull and John Thomas, and they would be invited to let off steam overnight at the police station.

One report told of a navvy who had taken a wicker basket into a local pub. While the navvy was outside taking the air, the landlord looked inside the basket and pulled out an ill-gotten hare, replacing it with a dead cat that was conveniently lying about. (Sorry, cat lovers.) The next day the navvy returned to the pub with basket. Finding the landlord out, and a leg of mutton stewing in a pot by the fire, he swapped the leg of mutton for the dead cat and scarpered.

On the 2nd of September 1872, the day of opening had finally arrived. 7½ miles of gleaming track, rather beautiful stone-built station and stationmaster’s house with flamboyantly scrolled gable pediments, turntable, water tower, goods shed, and livestock pens were ready and waiting just at the top end of Thornbury’s lovely High street. It was exactly like the Triang set I used to have.

Thornbury’s mayor and local dignitaries arrived in the first train from Yate, unaccompanied by Midland Railway directors, with whom they had unfortunately fallen out. They were swept into a road carriage and hauled by jubilant local inhabitants along the High street, past myriads of bunting, flags, banners, and triumphant arches. At the head of the procession the Tockington Brass Band played empire-building tunes, and bell ringers rang the rounds throughout the day. Children from the schools and workhouse were given the day off, a free ride to Yate and back, and a slap-up tea with plum cake.

Despite the fanfare, and despite promotions extolling the glorious views of the Severn Valley and comparing the landscape of Tytherington to that of the Peak District, the Thornbury line was never profitable, and the passenger service finally hit the buffers in 1944. However, the train staff seem to have enjoyed themselves. The engine driver would stop the train to pick water cress, and on one occasion shot a rabbit from his engine, jumped off to retrieve it, then jumped back on, all without stopping the train. And the water tower was a great success. Sourced from a spring in Grovesend quarry, it supplied the ‘Bathings’ pool down Bath road and standpipes throughout town with ‘Railway Water’.

Hoots and whistles to Meg and her wonderful collection of cuttings and photos from the museum.