This page deals with some common errors in the descriptions of various buildings at Bason Bridge station on the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR).

The modest station buildings at Bason Bridge were located on the single platform on the north (Down) side of the single-track line immediately west of the level-crossing. On the south (Up) side of the line in later years there was a small pent-roof wooden hut immediately to the west of the level-crossing and another small pent-roof wooden hut immediately to the east of the level-crossing. The former is labelled 'S.M.O' on a railway plan, presumed to be 'Station Master's Office', and the latter is believed to have been a Lamp Room. However some commentators have described erroneously one or other of those huts as containing the ground-frame (GF) which controlled the level-crossing and its protecting signals. In fact that GF was installed in a small pent-roof wooden hut on the platform, near to its eastern end.

East of the level-crossing were the sidings which served the milk factory. After those sidings were extended in the 1930s a gantry was installed across the railway to carry pipework from the factory to the Up Siding adjacent to the river-bank. At the foot of the gantry there was a small pitched-roof hut, presumed to house control equipment for the pipework, but some commentators erroneously describe this as the hut for the GF which controlled the sidings. Although no photographs are known of the original small sidings GF installed in 1909, it is clear from map evidence that it was not at the site of the later gantry, and from 1938 onwards the replacement larger sidings GF was housed in a pent-roof hut located at the east end of the sidings well away from the pipe gantry.

More detailed information about Bason Bridge can be found here.

© CJL Osment 2022