IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
School Gardens, SOUTH BRENT, TQ10 9PJ

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.

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.

South Brent station site, showing the disused but still surviving signalbox which was on the down platform of the now demolished station. Image shows the same site in rather different weather conditions. The train passing through is a steam hauled day excursion from Bristol to Par, hauled by GWR Castle class no 5043 Earl of Mt Edgecombe - see Image

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.

This view changed fairly recently with the demolition of the old signal box. It deserved a better fate.

The Village Hall serves the community of the large village of South Brent. It is on the corner of Station Approach, which runs parallel to the main line from Plymouth to Exeter and Bristol, but does not, sadly,lead to a station. This was closed in the mid sixties when the branch to Kingsbridge was closed.

This is the site of the former Great Western station in South Brent. The red brick former goods shed is now a dental surgery, a very valuable asset in our village, and hidden behind the locomotives exhaust is the signal box, the other major station building that remains. The signal box was required as the station was the junction for the delightful branch to Kingsbridge. On the skyline are the rooftops of Station Road. This steam hauled special produced plenty of exhaust on this very wet morning, hauled by Black Five 44871(leading) and Britannia 70013.

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.