STEPHEN ROBERTS traces a short – and short-lived – Hampshire branch which provided the London & South Western Railway with access to Christchurch and Bournemouth until superseded by a new direct main line from Brockenhurst to Christchurch in 1888.
For most people interested in Britain’s railways, talk of closures immediately brings 1960s bogeyman Dr. Richard Beeching to mind with his controversial report recommending the closure of some 6,000 miles of track, getting on for 2,500 stations and the decimation of routes which followed. I have an interest, however, in a quaint rural line that ran metres from my house in Christchurch, Dorset, which fell victim to redundancy as long ago as 1935. As railway closures go this had to be amongst the earliest. The line in question, coming down from…