Published November 2006

Crossing tracks at Woodmancote

A simple piece of work that has made life much easier for local residents was completed by the GWR late in October 2006. The popular foot crossing next to the British Legion at Woodmancote has now been improved and sports a fresh coat of tarmac on either side. It will particularly help those with pushchairs; small children pushing their bikes over and those confined to a wheelchair. The surface on either side was previously compacted ballast and gravel although the crossing itself comprised rubber panels and these remain.

The crossing links two separate public footpaths, each of which is identified with a different number on maps. One runs up to Britannia Way and on to Chapel Lane in Woodmancote, serving the housing estates in the village. The diverges from Pecked Lane in Bishops Cleeve, running parallel with it on the opposite side of the now-culverted brook. A separate short path, which has also been tarmac’d, links the crossing with Pecked Lane and is on GWR property.

The crossing is widely used by local people getting to and from the shops and by students walking to the comprehensive school. However, it remains a 'permissive crossing' which means that the public use it by courtesy of the railway, as was the case with British Railways and the Great Western Railway before it. The crossing itself is not, and never has been, a public right of way. The work was completed at the railway's cost.

Orchards and farmland

The crossing has been there since the railway compulsorily purchased the land and divided a farm. It passed over the two running lines, pointwork giving access from both lines to the goods yard, and a headshunt. It allowed the farmer to take equipment and livestock over the line with permission of the signalman.

The paths each became public rights of way and the Ordnance Survey map of 1923 shows them both, each terminating at gates in the railway’s fence. Apart from the station, signalbox , goods shed and the station master’s house and two railway cottages (which remain to this day), the only buildings marked close to the line are Pecked Piece Farm on the Bishops Cleeve side of the line, a house with outbuildings in Hyatt's Mead (now a block of ugly concrete garages). A track served the house and this became the public footpath. There are only a few cottages marked in Station Road. Farmland predominates on the Woodmancote side with orchards on the Bishops Cleeve side. There is precious little of either remaining today apart from the odd apple tree in peoples' gardens.

Over the years the crossing was increasingly used by local people as housing in Woodmancote and Bishops Cleeve developed and latterly it had a stile on either side. The crossing itself was simply loose ballast raised to rail level although it may have been constructed of sleepers laid longitudinally between the rails in earlier years.

The photographs show the crossing immediately after the tarmac had been applied, and were taken on Sunday 29th October, 2006.