IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Milford Trading Estate, Blakey Road, SALISBURY, SP1 2UD

This signal box controlled access from the Salisbury to Romsey railway line into Salisbury's Milford Goods Depot. A history of the goods depot (formerly a passenger station) follows below. Milford Station opened in Jan 1847 as the terminus of line from Eastleigh. The new line from Basingstoke used Milford as a passenger station from May 1857. From May 1859, all passenger trains were diverted to the current Salisbury station off Fisherton Street, but the Milford station was retained as a goods depot. Milford closed as a goods depot on 21 August 1967. Milford Signal Box closed 1 January 1968. For more details, please see pp153 to 157 of H.P.White’s Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain (Vol 2 – Southern England) published by David & Charles in 1964.

Looking south along the railway from Southampton. This was taken upon the footbridge that carries the Clarendon Way Long Distance Footpath over the lines at this point.

A pub with two names! The Railway Inn, on Tollgate Road, opened in 1847, immediately opposite the site of Salisbury’s first Railway station. Less than ten years later however, the station was moved across town, to its present location which left the Railway Inn to serve as an ordinary pub for the railwaymen and others who worked the large Milford Goods Yard. The nickname “The Dusthole” probably arose because of the dust created from the coal drops along the north side of Blakey Road where the Salisbury coal merchants used to store their coal, after unloading it from the railway wagons. Also, the cattle drovers, used to head along this road raising a lot of dust, until it was finally surfaced with tarmac. Add that the dusty clothing of the patrons and the black smoke from the old steam locos and you can see why it got its nickname. After a few years it was never called anything else but “The Dusthole” and its official name sank into obscurity. Finally, in 1976 the pubs brewers had “The Dusthole” registered as a second official name and it became the first pub in England to have two names (http://www.milfordstreetbridgeproject.org.uk/content/places/pubs/the-railway-innthe-dusthole-the-pub-with-two-names The Milford Street Bridge Project).

Having grown up with The Pub with No Name http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/799234 I now find a hostelry with two http://thedusthole.vpweb.co.uk/ Put them together, divide by two and you have the number of names most pubs have- one!

A suitable image greets all patrons of the pub. See Image] for a wider view.

A pub with two names? Opposite the pub to the left was the old Milford railway goods station (now a small industrial estate), so hence the railway connection. Perhaps it was also a noticeably sooty part of town too? See Image] for a closer look at the image above the door, and Image] for a side view.

Or is it? A case of split personality perhaps if you look at the other side of this pub occupying a narrow angle at the junction of Tollgate Road and Blakey Road. See Image

On Tollgate Road. Also known as the Railway Inn. It was adjacent to the coal drops at the now-closed Milford railway goods depot and this probably gave rise to the 'dust' in its name.

The view from Shady Bower with the footbridge clearly visible in the mid distance.