Winscombe railway station was a station on the Bristol and Exeter Railway

Bristol and Exeter Railway

The Bristol & Exeter Railway was a railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter.The company's head office was situated outside their Bristol station...

's Cheddar Valley line

Cheddar Valley line

The Cheddar Valley line was a railway line in Somerset, England, opened in 1869 and closed in 1963. It became known as The Strawberry Line because of the volume of locally-grown strawberries that it carried....

 in Winscombe

Winscombe

Winscombe is a village in North Somerset, England, close to the settlements of Axbridge and Cheddar, on the western edge of the Mendip Hills, south-east of Weston-super-Mare and south-west of Bristol...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

.

The station was opened as "Woodborough" with the broad gauge

Broad gauge

Broad-gauge railways use a track gauge greater than the standard gauge of .- List :For list see: List of broad gauges, by gauge and country- History :...

 line to Cheddar in August 1869 as a single-platform station. The railway was extended to Wells

Wells (Tucker Street) railway station

Wells railway station was the second terminus station on the Bristol and Exeter Railway's Cheddar Valley line in Somerset after the extension from the first terminus at Cheddar was opened...

 in 1870, converted to standard gauge in the mid-1870s and then linked up to the East Somerset Railway

East Somerset Railway

The East Somerset Railway is a heritage railway in Somerset, running between Cranmore and Mendip Vale. Prior to the Beeching Axe, the railway ran from Witham to Wells, meeting both the Cheddar Valley line and Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway at the latter station.- History :The line was...

 to provide through services from Yatton

Yatton railway station

Yatton railway station serves the village of Yatton in North Somerset, England. It is west of Bristol Temple Meads railway station on the Bristol to Taunton Line.-History:...

 to Witham

Witham (Somerset) railway station

Witham railway station was a station serving the Somerset village of Witham Friary and was located on the Frome to Yeovil section of the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway that opened in 1856...

 in 1878. All the railways involved were absorbed into the Great Western Railway

Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

 in the 1870s.

Winscombe was originally a small wooden building, unlike the substantial Bristol and Exeter design stone buildings provided for other stations on the line. This was replaced in 1905 with a standard GWR building with a large canopy.

The Yatton to Witham line closed to passengers in 1963. Winscombe station was demolished, but in recent years the platform has been reinstated with GWR seats and railings as a feature on the Cheddar Valley Railway Walk.

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