Part 1: Norton Fitzwarren to Milverton
The Taunton to Barnstaple railway opened between 1871 and 1873, skirting the southern boundary of Exmoor and clipping through moorland. It travelled via the picturesque Somerset towns of Milverton and Wiveliscombe before crossing and recrossing the Devon—Somerset border through Morebath, Dulverton and East Anstey and then onto South Molton and finally Barnstaple. In the nineteenth century the 44-mile route took 1 hour 44 minutes. In 2019 the journey takes a minimum of 1 hour 27 minutes, and you have to go via Exeter, for the direct line was shut at Beeching’s behest in 1966.
Modern OS maps show the ghost of a line, labelled as “dismantled railway”, and this spectre of past travel keeps calling to me. As I walk and ride repeatedly past its old tunnels, half-lost bridges and converted station buildings I want to know more of what was there, what it was like to travel that route and what more remains of it now. And so started my latest project.
How would it feel to walk and cycle as much of this route as possible? What would I find, what would I discover about travelling through this borderland of not-quite Exmoor, part Somerset, part Devon? What would I find out about the past, the past that remains now, and the present situation for travellers?
I started with the 1:25000 OS map from 2008, although even that I discover is out of date with regard to modern rights of way. I backed this up with the 6” to 1 mile 1905 maps available online from the National Library of Scotland. I marked up the names of the old structures – the Pig and Whistle Bridge, Tone Viaduct, Knackershole Tunnel. I decided to travel from east to west. Travelling westward, pursuing the sun’s path, always feels to me like a yearning attempt at time travel. Chase the sun’s last rays as if we can maintain one long day’s length. Track the ghost of the railway as the line behind you recedes into darkness.
When the line first closed, the Exmoor Society campaigned to turn it into a greenway – a track suitable for walkers, cyclists, horse riders and even carriage drivers, facilitating access to the national park itself. The sheer expense of maintaining the line meant this never happened but I realise early on what a grand plan this was, and what a beautiful walk it could have been. Sadly, whilst much of it remains beautiful, walking the route is often frustrating.
My first plan was to catch a bus out to Norton Fitzwarren, the railway junction where the line split, and walk back to Milverton, catching a bus home from there. The next section from Milverton to Wiveliscombe I would walk another time. Previously a return bus fare into Taunton from Bampton had cost me £5 and I had budgeted for this. On boarding however I was charged £9 and quickly resorted to plan B, walk the whole Norton Fitzwarren to Wivelisombe section in one hit, and stay within budget. Lesson 1 in modern travel, we are losing our buses because we are not using them but we are not using them because they are made hard to use. The expense of subsidising them is little compared to the cost of losing them from communities but I struggle to find anyone in power who will acknowledge this.
Checking the weather forecast, on the bus I will be travelling away from bad weather. As I turn back to walk the line, I will be facing into it. But it looks like it will be good weather for rainbows, the skies are spectacular, and the light more interesting than on a uniformly bright day. There is some sort of inevitability about the fact that, knowing there won’t a be a toilet, I need to use one by the time I get off the bus. The availability of appropriately named “conveniences” is a whole other topic on accessibility. But I give thanks to Norton Fitzwarren village hall for making my trip more comfortable.
I start, appropriately, at Station Road. I know there is no evidence of the first station at Norton Fitzwarren. Indeed it’s not even marked on old maps, which is unusual. There is a footpath at the end of the road that leads along the railway line to a footbridge. There’s something familiar about any of these paths, a sense of transience, of not quite being one thing or another, that goes with paths besides railways. I’m in border territory again, which makes me happiest, because it seems to reflect something of me.
The bridge is very much a twentieth-century construct and the old OS maps gave no indication there was any bridge at this point. Perhaps foot traffic just took a risk of the kind that would be impossible now. I pick up a footpath on the southern side of the Taunton to Exeter line, cross the remains of the Great Western Canal and follow a footpath alongside the River Tone. Waterways are to become my saving grace in identifying which Right of Way (RoW) I’m using, because these are not always clearly maintained and the landscape doesn’t match the map.
At Hele Manor I pick up a back road towards Allerford and start to feel as if I’m going the right way again. Frustratingly, this first part of the route requires much zig-zagging around. I notice again something that happened when I reconnoitred parts of the route earlier – I can feel the pull of the line. I’m becoming oddly aware of where it lies in the landscape. I feel better when I’m heading towards it, at home the brief times I can walk on it, and unsettled when I must turn away from it. Whatever homing instinct I have seems to have settled on the railway. Given the amount I have moved around in my life, it’s perhaps not surprising that I home in on a travelled path. And given my own temperament, it’s not surprising that I choose the ghost of a railway line to become attached to.
At Allerford I find the remains of a bridge and my sense of urgency relaxes a little. I know I’m pushing it to get back to Wiveliscombe for the last bus home, but this is what I came for. This grand old structure which has a certainty about it. It’s not what it was, it’s what it is now. It may be a deckless bridge, but it still stands tall. The path of the railway is evident, raised above fields. It is marked by a line of trees and I am to find this frequently. After more than fifty years, relatively mature trees line much of the old route.
I head back down to Hazelhurst farm and turn right, onto a back road heading towards Pontispool. There I bag my second bridge and move onto a footpath that runs alongside the old line. Here I get my first glimpses of what the line could have been like had it all been preserved as greenway. The cinder track is tree-lined, inviting, sheltered, easy to navigate and direct. But instead of following it, I am pushed away from direct travel. You cannot actually walk in anything like a straight line from Taunton to Milverton and whilst I’m not suggesting hoards of people want to, more might like to if they had a decent route. Instead, you either have to risk walking along a fast, narrow B-road with minimal verges, or frustratingly cross and re-cross your own path, trying to push onto where you’re meant to be. Given that I would like to escape from political analogies, this is not helping.
There is no railway anymore. The bus is expensive. If you want to cycle or walk you’re either pushed to the margins or must take your life in your hands with the motor traffic on the road. The entire system is designed so that the most effective way to travel is by car and the pity of it is that it is only five miles from the outskirts of Taunton to Milverton. It really isn’t very far, and shouldn’t be this much of a challenge. Challenge it is though. The old track persists in reality, although not marked as an RoW on the map. And then it does this:
I turn around, back to another footpath I had seen leading to Harnham Farm, which has become a confusing maze of new development. I rely on the pull of the old line to get me back on track. I try not to think that pointlessly zigzagging around searching for ghosts may be a personal as well as a political metaphor.
There are several footpaths that are meant to cross this land but it’s not clear which one I’m on. I can understand why footpaths on farmland are sometimes not too well maintained. I know enough of farming to know that when I walk the edge of a crop field, I am walking on a farmer’s profit margin. They have little choice but to plough every inch they can. It’s as I climb a culvert over the old line that I work it out. The waterways again, helping me match landscape to map. Since it’s 2pm and I haven’t had lunch, I perch on the steps of the culvert and eat cheese and biscuits.
I head south west away from the line and towards Oake Green Farm. Here, the footpaths are beautifully marked out, creating an echo of the railway track on the landscape. I decide to head back north towards Heathfield and risk a stretch on the main road. It will shorten the route slightly and my feet are starting to tell me they don’t really like me all that much right now. My experience with my feet suggests that once they start on this particular whinge, they tend not to shut up until parked on a sofa somewhere.
Crossing the line again is frustrating. As you look down it, you can see where you were 20 minutes ago before you started zig zagging around and my legs are thinking of joining in the whinginess of the feet. Fortunately, since I cycle a lot, my legs are better behaved when I tell them to shut up. There’s a long way to go yet and it’s far too early in the afternoon for that.
I reach the main road and am initially glad to see it. I’m a competent map reader but in a new place, I like some concrete (or at least tarmacked) evidence of where I am. I can’t help but think of Hope Bourne and the writer’s admonition that we just aren’t used to exploring the wild in the way that we used to be. Up against a bus timetable, and not as resourceful as Bourne when it comes to roughing it, I quite like the sight of the B3227.
I stop liking it quite quickly. I’m glad to see the tiniest gap in the hedge and a style that marks my path back away from incompetent drivers. However, I now have another problem because I cannot exactly see where I need to be going and I am creeping round the edge of another field and not going in the direction I want to go. Feeling pissed off in a fairly literal sense I decide to wee in a drainage ditch. I’m not surprised this is described as relieving oneself. Newly focused and relieved I find one of those pesky yellow SCC arrows and make it out of one field and into another. Eventually I find the line just as it passes into Oake.
Disappointingly, the Pig and Whistle bridge is no more. There is nothing of it. It’s also nearing 3pm and I know I’m up against the clock. More zig zagging ensues. I’m wondering if it’s worth investing in 1:10k maps that include field boundaries so I can work out better where I actually am. I hit road again and decide just to follow it until I get to the side road down to Blagrove’s. Blagrove’s bridge is still there, just as I get battered by a hail storm and scare a herd of young bulls by extracting my waterproof trousers from my rucksack, finding my spare tissues, and swearing a lot because I’ve lost them again. I’m tense. I don’t like being up against the last bus home.
I turn away from Blagrove’s and pick up a footpath that then goes back across the railway line. There are choices at this point. There is a footpath that goes all the way into Milverton, following Hillfarrance brook for much of its length. There are several footpaths leading northwards off this, crossing the old line and heading towards the main road. I keep along Hillfarrance. It feels direct. It’s off the main road but I know exactly where I am. Then for some reason, rather than pressing on sensibly into Milverton I take one of the spurs off up to Preston Bowyer. My feet actively hate me and are wet. My legs aren’t happy, but they’re used to this malarkey.
At Preston Bowyer I end up on a particularly dangerous stretch of the B road, inaccessible by anyone not in a car. Well it would be accessible, but there are a lot of people driving very fast along it. I do find this though:
I’m pretty certain it isn’t railway track, but it does appear to have repurposed bits of the line. At a particularly precipitous bend in the road I pick up a footpath that I know will shortly run parallel with the old line. Its entry is marked by an old phone box, another defunct method of communication.
Periodically there are footpaths that run parallel to the old line. They’re frustrating. Not as frustrating as the zig zags but you can see the former railway and can’t help but think “why this bit of land, not that?” The answer I suspect lies in land ownership. It’s a very pretty path, it’s just not where I want to be. Another metaphor perhaps.
I arrive in Milverton, again at Station Road, although there is no station left. It is 4.40pm and I have a choice. Twiddle my thumbs until 6.28pm and the arrival of the last bus, or do the 3 miles to Wiveliscombe for 6.35pm. 3 miles in under 2 hours is a slow pace. However, the supposed 5 miles from Norton Fitzwarren has already taken me 3 hours and 50 minutes, since it wasn’t 5 miles, I didn’t know where I was going, and I kept stopping to map read and take photos. My feet officially hate me and are still wet. My legs have started to burn. I’ve tried the old “shut up, legs” but they’ve pointed out that this is a technique used by professional cyclists doing the Tour de France and I am a middle-aged historian walking along an old railway line. They’re not buying it.
But I know, even though I risk ending up in the middle of nowhere (OK, the rural Devon-Somerset hinterland) with an increasingly flat mobile phone battery, that I will go for the sillier option. I do not know why I do these things. Somewhere in a parallel universe is a version of me that found a pub in Milverton and had a pint whilst waiting for a bus. But in this universe, this version of me just opts for the crazy. I don’t even like these words as I know all too well about the terminology of mental illness but something in my brain is going to make me head for Wivey. I sigh, take my dry socks out of my rucksack, placate my feet, and push on. The next part of the route is more direct. The worst that can happen is that I surprise friends in Wiveliscombe by turning up late and dishevelled.
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