Cheltenham South and Leckhampton railway station

Cheltenham South and Leckhampton railway station in Gloucestershire served the village of Leckhampton and the southern outskirts of Cheltenham Spa.

History

The station opened in 1881 with the opening of the Bourton-on-the-Water to Cheltenham section of the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway, which was operated and later taken over by the Great Western Railway.

From 1891 the station was also served by trains on the Midland and South Western Junction Railway line, which branched off the Banbury and Cheltenham line at Andoversford and formed a north-south link from Cheltenham to Swindon, Andover and the south coast. The M&SWJR had running rights over the GWR line.

The station was originally called Leckhampton, but acquired its longer name in 1906 when a through express train service between Newcastle upon Tyne and Swansea was routed along the Banbury to Cheltenham line: the express did not pass through any of the main Cheltenham stations, and the renaming of Leckhampton, where it called, was intended to show passengers that there was a Cheltenham service on the train. It was renamed Cheltenham Leckhampton in 1952.

It was a small station with a brick building. The line through it was particularly busy during the First World War and the Second World War with heavy troop and machinery movements on the M&SWJR. Traffic declined rapidly after the Second World War.

The M&SWJR line closed to passenger traffic in September 1961, and services on the Banbury to Cheltenham line were withdrawn on 15 October 1962, when the station closed. The site of the station is now occupied by Leckhampton Place, a residential development, and Liddington Park Industrial Estate; both accessed via Old Station Drive.

References

• Mike Oakley, Gloucestershire Railway Stations, 2003, Dovecote Press, Wimborne, ISBN 1-904349-24-2, pp41–42