Introduction

The railway station at Henstridge was a simple wayside station in the county of Somerset, on the southern part of the original main line of the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR) from Bath to Wimborne. That part of the S&DJR was constructed originally by the Dorset Central Railway (DCR), which was opened on 1-November-1860 as a single-track line from Wimborne to Blandford. Subsequently the DCR was extended northwards to join with the Somerset Central Railway (SCR) and in 1862 become the Somerset and Dorset Railway (S&DR), which in turn became the S&DJR in 1875 when the line was leased jointly by the Midland Railway (MR) and London & South Western Railway (L&SWR). After the Grouping of the railways of Great Britain in 1923 the S&DJR became a Joint line under the control of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) and the Southern Railway (SR), who were the successors to the MR and L&SWR respectively. When the railways of Great Britain were nationalised in 1948 the Joint line south of Evercreech Junction came under the control of British Railways (Southern Region) (BR(SR)), but in 1963 the line southwards through Henstridge passed to the control of British Railways (Western Region) (BR(WR)) and remained as such until the S&DJR closed to passenger traffic on 6-March-1966.

A view of Henstridge station looking north in 1951 and a map of the station in 1901

Various Signal Diagrams for Henstridge
Click any thumbnail to see a larger image
1902		1930		1956

To be continued...

© CJL Osment 2021-22
Station photograph courtesy Peter Russell. OS map extract reproduced with permission of the National Library of Scotland.