Tower and Town, June 2019

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The Marlborough Branch Line And Station

When the dire consequences to the economic life of the town of not having a railway connection became apparent, local sentiment drove the creation of the Marlborough Branch Railway which opened in 1864 - 13 years after the GWR main line had reached Swindon.

It was single track leaving the Berks and Hants Railway just east of where it and the Kennet and Avon Canal are crossed by the Marlborough - Salisbury turnpike road (now the A346) and terminating in Cherry Orchard just west of the turnpike.

The junction and Savernake station (Low Level as it later became) was built on top of the canal tunnel and the sinuous line was built to Brunel's broad gauge and operated from the outset by the GWR. In consequence it used Brunel's idiosyncratic 'baulk' track which used 'bridge' rails of top-hat section laid on top of heavy continuous timbers (the baulks); this was very different from the normal practice of rails being fixed to cross-wise sleepers and did not work nearly as well. In time all the baulk track was replaced by conventional rails and sleepers, but two sections of bridge rail at the start of Upper Churchfields survive as an abandoned gatepost.

The trackbed of this railway has scarcely been built over except at the Marlborough end where Orchard Road and St John's school occupy the station site, so there is a proposal to reconstruct the line as set out in John Yates' piece.

Alexander Kirk-Wilson