IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Hillside, SOUTH BRENT, TQ10 9AN

The main railway line is on the left over the wall, but no station is there now. On the right is Brookwood Close.

A multiple unit heads for Ivybridge and Plymouth as it passes the old signal box. In front is the town car park. In the background is housing on Brookswood Close.

South Brent was once a busy junction station on the South Devon Railway mainline to Plymouth. It was closed in 1963 but Image provides a snapshot of it in 1958. Some of the infrastructure remains, the signal box is on what remains of the island platform, and the goods shed is now a busy dental surgery, see Image The rest of the yard is used for parking and has a small factory in one part. Snow is not new here; in March 1891 a drama occurred when the GWR's premier daily express from Paddington to Plymouth, nicknamed "The Zulu", was stranded here for 4 days in what was called The Great Blizzard. Greg Wall's Book of South Brent published by Halsgrove in 2005, has an interesting account from newspaper reports of the time. See Image for the same scene.

High Speed train passing the disused signalbox at South Brent.

On a misty evening a westbound freight heads for St Blazey. This was the former South Brent Station, junction for the Kingsbridge Line, shut in the '60s around 1963 I think.

The station yard is now a car park. On the far side of the railway line the former signal box is boarded up.

View eastwards, towards Newton Abbot, Exeter etc.; ex-GWR London etc. - Exeter - Plymouth - Penzance main line. Until 16/9/63, Brent was the junction for the branch to Kingsbridge; Brent was closed on 5/10/64. Here in 1958 it was still active: leaving for Penzance is the 05.20 express from Paddington, headed by a Collett 'Castle' 4-6-0 No. 4087 'Cardigan Castle'; in the bay is a 2-6-2T 5168 ready to bank the next Down freight train up the formidable Rattery Bank ahead.

This is the South Devon Railway mainline designed by I K Brunel. This cutting is immediately east of the former station yard. The vehicle tracks in the snow on the right of the railway lines follow the course of the Kingsbridge branchline which ran round to the right in a cutting now hidden by the trees. ironically the branchline opened after the mainline had been converted from Mr Brunel's Broad Gauge and closed when the mainline still operated. The tracks are used by Network Rail for access to the railway lines, they use the former signal box, Image occasionally as a mess-room and store when working in the area.

The village is lucky to have a dental surgery, and for this building to have been saved and converted into it. Originally this area was the railway station yard, and this building was the Goods Shed built by the GWR. The conversion was excellent, with a mezzanine floor added that fits in with the original internal structural ironwork. See Image for a different view.