r a i lway h e r i tag e t ru s t
Opened by the Midland Railway in 1876 and passing through some of England’s most dramatic scenery, the Settle & Carlisle line was threatened with closure in the 1980s. It survived and is now a strategic route supported by its Friends, Development Company, Trust and the local authorities. Many beautiful stations survive, built to standard designs in three sizes (but each using local materials) and Appleby, restored in 1999, is an example of a large (type 1) station. The new lighting, standard for the line, uses exact copies of the MR gas lamps (see pages 30, 66 and 67).
The impecunious Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway (known as the Old, Worse & Worse) built cheap timber buildings, but that at Charlbury was slightly grander and, with Brunel as engineer for the line, was built to his South Devon Railway design, with broad eaves and arched windows. The OW&WR passed to the Great Western Railway in 1863. Charlbury, home station of the late Sir Peter Parker, British Rail’s Chairman from 1976 to 1983, was well kept but was the subject of some heritage improvements in 2002.
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