Wookey railway station

Wookey
The railway station before closure
General information
Location	Wells, Mendip England
Coordinates	51.2142°N 2.6728°W / 51.2142; -2.6728
Grid reference	ST531463
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Bristol and Exeter Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway
Key dates
1 August 1871 (1871-08-01)	Station opened
9 September 1963 (1963-09-09)	Station closed

Wookey Station

Site of Special Scientific Interest
Location	Somerset
Grid reference	ST531464
Interest	Geological
Area	0.04 hectares (0.00040 km2; 0.00015 sq mi)
Notification	1997 (1997)
Natural England website

Wookey railway station was a station on the Bristol and Exeter Railway's Cheddar Valley line in Somerset, England. The site is a 0.04 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Wells and Wookey Hole.

History

The station opened on 1 August 1871 about a year after the extension of the broad gauge line from Cheddar to Wells had been built. The line was converted to standard gauge in the mid-1870s and then linked up to the East Somerset Railway to provide through services from Yatton to Witham in 1878. All the railways involved were absorbed into the Great Western Railway in the 1870s.

The station was host to a GWR camp coach from 1935 to 1939.

The Yatton to Witham line closed to passengers in 1963; Wookey station closed on 9 September 1963, though goods traffic continued to the paper mills at Wookey until 1965. Wookey station had a small wooden building, unlike some of the other stations on the line which had impressive stone buildings. The site was cleared after closure.

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Lodge Hill Line and station closed		Cheddar Valley Railway Great Western Railway		Wells (Tucker Street) Line and station closed

Site of Special Scientific Interest

It is listed in the Geological Conservation Review because of the exposure of a 3-metre (9.8 ft) thick sequence of Pleistocene-aged cryoturbated gravels which exhibit scour-and-fill structures in their lower part. A small, silty channel-infilling has yielded an assemblage of palynomorph spores dating from the last (Devensian) glacial period.

See also

• Bruton Railway Cutting

References

• Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
• McRae, Andrew (1997). British Railway Camping Coach Holidays: The 1930s & British Railways (London Midland Region). Vol. Scenes from the Past: 30 (Part One). Foxline. ISBN 1-870119-48-7.
• Oakley, Mike (2002). Somerset Railway Stations. Wimborne: Dovecote Press. p. 138.