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Holt Junction Railway Station

Holt, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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Enamelled sign from the station, now in Bradford on Avon Museum

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The original plan of the Great Western Railway (GWR) between London and Bristol in 1835 was for there to be branches to Bradford, Trowbridge and Devizes, but these were not built. It was left to the Wiltshire, Somerset & Weymouth Railway (WSWR) to build a line from Chippenham to Westbury and beyond, passing through Holt in 1848. Again, promised branches to Bradford and Bath and to Devizes were left out until 1857, when Holt Junction became the junction for the Devizes Branch.

When the GWR made the Berks & Hants Extension Railway westwards from Pewsey to Devizes in 1862, trains from London and Reading could run on to the WSWR at Holt Junction.The building of a direct line from Patney & Chirton to Westbury in 1900 by-passed Devizes and Holt, thereby reducing traffic. The Patney & Chirton to Holt Junction line via Devizes closed in April 1966 and most structures on it, including Holt Junction Station, were demolished in 1970. The former WSWR is still open through Holt and carries trains between Swindon and Westbury, but is reduced to a single line. A short stretch of the Devizes branch at Holt remained for a while as a siding where the Royal Train carrying Queen Elizabeth II and her entourage spent a night in June 1966.

At first the station was only used for passengers changing from main to and from branch line trains. Access for local people as a real station only began in 1874. The goods yard dealt with imports of coal, wool and hides for Beavens’, feathers and hair for Sawtell’s bedding factory and exported leather and the produce of market gardens, especially tomatoes and products of the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company factory (opened 1897, from 1935 Nestlé) in a former woollen cloth mill at nearby Staverton. A large covered loading bay for the milk goods was built at the station in 1909, which remained in use until 1934, when the factory got its own direct connection to the railway by a siding.

For a period the coal yard at the station belonged to the Somersetshire Coal Company of  Stephen Steed, George Saunders Sainsbury, Henry John Sainsbury and William Edward Sainsbury, who operated at Bristol, Chippenham, Melksham, Calne and Trowbridge as well, but became bankrupt in 1883. The Sainsburys were involved in other businesses in Devizes including the Bear Hotel, a brewery and the Giddings wine merchant.

The first Station Master of Holt Junction was Edwin Pyle, who was there until 1881 when he went to become the landlord of the Cross Guns pub at Avoncliff, Westwood. The Station Master in 1911 was named Goldsworth Beer.

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