Ian Boskett from Tewkesbury got our new season of to a cracking start with Ashchurch to Malvern on 19th September. Using a tall cedar tree (still there) as a focal point, images showed the quite substantial station at Ashchurch with platforms on 3 lines, Cheltenham towards Tewkesbury, Cheltenham towards Evesham and, through the middle, the Birmingham to Bristol main line. Running over a flat crossing to the northern edge of the station was a direct Tewkesbury to Evesham single track. The 1840 station in Tewkesbury High Street was a terminus, with a track across the High Street allowing wagons for industrial units on the banks of the River Avon to be taken across, initially horse drawn, but then using a motorised tractor. Railway locomotives were not permitted to cross the High Street after one escaped and landed in the river! Photographs demonstrated that tank engines did occasionally serve as the ‘tractor’ across the High Street. A new station to the north of the town centre was then built in 1864 which allowed the railway to continue towards Malvern, over the causeway to The Mythe, through a tunnel towards Ripple (station house is still there), Upton on Severn and terminating in a bay platform at Great Malvern where connections could be made for Hereford and Worcester. A corrugated iron ‘worm’ led from the station direct to Malvern Girls School, now a hotel. The ‘worm’ is still there and can be seen from passing trains.
