| Re: Lacock Halt - opened 16th October 1905 Posted by matth1j at 08:57, 16th October 2025 |     |
Would be handy for trips to Whitehall garden centre too, just down the road from the old station site. It's pretty popular, especially at Christmas when they put on quite a show and it's packed.
| Re: Lacock Halt - opened 16th October 1905 Posted by grahame at 08:03, 16th October 2025 | |
It's 120 years since the opening on Lacock Halt on the (then) double track line from Chippenham through Melksham to Holt Junction ... onwards to Bradford-on-Avon and Trowbridge, and with a change at Holt for Devizes. The line is now single, the direct chord to Bradford-on-Avon gone, and the line to Devizes closed in 1966 and the line is now largely lost into fields. Lacock and Melksham Stations closed in 1966 too but Melksham re-opened in 1985. Is there a case for the re-opening of a station at Lacock?
Twenty years ago, when I joined the campaign for a sensible train service at Melksham, the idea of re-opening Lacock would have been seen as proof of my madness. These days, I am not so sure.
Lacock is a historic "National Trust" village and heaven forbid anyone or anything that disturbs the heritage. However, the station site and railway line is about a mile from the core of the village, and located near to an area of housing in which car ownership and availability is far from universal, and right beside a factory where staff are bussed in every day from - err - places like Chippenham Station. Wiltshire needs more housing and when such is built, a key issue is infrastructure - access to it, and in some cases what better start is there than a railway line and station? The Bath and Wiltshire Metro suggests Lacock as a possible station site, and with trains calling there every half hour I can foresee a future for a busting community there as part of a connected and sustainable city. No longer madness.
| Lacock Halt - opened 16th October 1905 Posted by grahame at 19:42, 14th October 2023 | |
From Wikipedia
On 1 October 1905 the running of local services between Chippenham and Trowbridge was taken over by steam rail-motors in order to reduce operational costs. With the aim of increasing passenger traffic, halts at Lacock and Staverton were opened just over two weeks later on Monday 16 October – a strategy which proved so successful that two more halts were added at Beanacre and Broughton Gifford within the space of a year. This was despite an inauspicious start to the service when the inaugural train to Lacock and Staverton broke down and a steam engine had to be sent from Chippenham in order to push the stricken rail-motor to Trowbridge, although the ensemble was only half an hour late arriving at Lacock. It was reported that "a numerous company" were present to witness the occasion, with 5 passengers alighting and 13 boarding the train.
and from my old blog
