Local History
Brockenhurst to Christchurch
Now, I love my railways. One regret during the pandemic has been my inability to take to the tracks. In normal times, I write for the railway press, which includes sampling interesting routes ‘a la’ Michael Portillo (minus outlandish costumes), then reporting on them. It’s a nice way to earn a living. Even today, with the railways slightly less genteel than formerly, it’s a mode of travel knocking spots off automotive hades. Thanks to railway bogeyman Dr. Beeching, we’re not as well blessed locally as we were, having lost many of our routes in the 1960s, including the first one to cross the New Forest, a line from Brockenhurst nort rth-west t to Holmsley (formerly Christchurch Road) and Ringwood, a port rtion t of ‘Castleman’s Corkscrew’ as it became known, which opened in June 1847. Christchurch Road was the nearest railhead for the Priory ryy town until Christchurch got its first town centre station in 1862, which prompted its renaming as ‘Holmsley’. The whole of that first line closed to passengers in May 1964
aficionados might be interested to know that a 1974 remake of ‘Brief Encounter’ was shot at Brockenhurst. It starred Richard Burt rton t and Sophia Loren.
The Railway Hotel in Ringwood, a reminder of the town’s lost station.
One of the developments that undoubtedly contributed to the closure of the circuitous Brockenhurst-RingwoodWimborne route was the opening of another, later line west from Brockenhurst, the southern, ‘coastal’ route through Sway, New Milton and Hinton Admiral, which opened through to Christchurch and beyond in March 1888. The irony was this being the ‘new kid on the block’ as far as local railways were concerned, yet seeing off fff the earlier, established competition.
444027 at Brockenhurst’s Platform 1 with a Lymington branch train far right on Platform 4.
Ghostly platform at Holmsley, which was formerly Christchurch Road station.
Brockenhurst was a busy junction with the Ringwood and Sway lines, plus the Lymington branch, which opened in July 1858, so predating the Sway line by around 30 years. Movie
I’m heading down the ‘new’ route, so it’s next stop Sway, which opened with the line in March 1888.
Sway station.
Between 1956 and 1967 there was a camping coach here (two of them from 1959), the holiday destination of choice for folk maybe heading here from Waterloo and provincial stations furt rther t afield with their lugg ggage, g intent on a bit of kip and self-catering in a convert rted t rail carriage while express trains thundered through. It seems a very ryy British kind of holiday. New Milton (again, March 1888) could have been named, well, almost anyt ything. t It seems ‘Milton’ was favoured, except there were other Miltons in the country ryy (confusing), so ‘Bart rton’ t was posited as an alternative, except for other Bart rtons t (same problem), eventually leading to ‘New Milton’ being adopted when a new sub post offi ffice fi opened with that name.
