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Beeching Way, WALLINGFORD, OX10 0TG

Off Beeching Way. So new it's not on the map. This area as well as being the site of Wallingford train station was also home to the town Gas Works in the days when gas was manufactured from coal. This was a very dirty process and there were substantial pollution issues to be solved before housing could be built.

A nice conversion of a building which was part of an old pumping station. An earlier picture from 2010 Image shows it empty and boarded up. It's good to see it with a new life as it's quite a pleasant old building.

Beeching Way is on the site of the terminus of the old branch line which used to run between the main line at Cholsey and Wallingford Station, which was near here. The station closed to passengers in 1959 and no trace remains. Dr Richard Beeching in 1963 produced a report which resulted in the closure of many lines and stations, and Wallingford would undoubtedly have been one of them if events hadn't beaten him to it. But as this road is on the site of a closed station, the name is relevant. The small boarded up building was part of an old pumping station. Since this picture was taken it has been converted to a house, shown here Image

Collett 0-4-2T No. 1444 (built 4/35 as 4844, renumbered 11/46, withdrawn 10/64) is working the shuttle service from Cholsey & Moulsford, which lasted until 15/6/59. General goods on the branch lasted until 13/9/65, but traffic to Wallingford Maltings (the site of the present station) continued until 1981, after which the line was taken over by the heritage Cholsey and Wallingford Railway.

Opened in 1866 by the Wallingford and Watlington Railway (which never got to Watlington and became part of the Great Western Railway in 1872), as the terminus of the line from Moulsford. In 1892 the junction was moved to Cholsey. Wallingford station closed to passengers in 1959 and completely in 1965. View north towards the buffers. It is hard to imagine today that the single platform and station building would have been to the right and a small engine shed to the left. No trace remains. SeeImage for an image of the location taken some 59 years earlier.

Mobile phone equipment can be seen here on top of the water tower at Wallingford

One of the things that dominate the centre of Wallingford is this water tower that now stands in a housing estate.

I came here to see if there was a bench mark on the pump house and by chance saw one person who lived here in the housing beside it. They were good enough to let me photograph it from this side which shows what looks like a porch was here at one time. No bench mark though, I found out it was probably on the water tower that used to be here but was demolished, this is all that is left now.