GWR Route: The North Warwickshire Line

GWR Route: Stratford Upon Avon to Hatton

Stratford upon Avon Station: gwrsa505

Looking north towards Birmingham with the station in late 19th/early 20th century condition. The station at this period of time, thought to be about 1900, has just two through platforms, although Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith in their book Stratford Upon Avon to Cheltenham claim there was a bay platform at the far end on the left of platform 2.

The line of platform 2 is a little more curved than seen when platform 3 was created. This is best determined by looking at the sweep of platform 1 which remained the same and comparing the 6 foot between the two lines. In the photograph above the two tracks definitively move apart from the end of the third coach, is at its widest adjacent to the locomotive and is coming together as it nears Alcester Road bridge.

When the island platform was created it was realigned with the nearest building to the camera on platform 2 being demolished and the edge of platform 2 being moved forward. Of note is the style of the roof and canopy of all of the buildings, other than the one nearest the camera on the left soon to be demolished, they are the same.

Compare them to the buildings on platform 2 and 3 in other later photographs and the style, including the chimneys are the same. Compare too the canopy on the front elevation seen in images 'gwrsa498/501´these too have the same style of canopy and roof. In addition, photographs taken in 1954 of platform 2's surviving buildings shows the windows to be more square at the top whereas the windows on platform 1 are distinctly round.

The conclusion must be that the canopies and roofs were rebuilt, and from the clean state seen above, fairly recently. This might therefore support Vic Mitchells and Keith Smiths claim in their book 'Stratford Upon Avon to Cheltenham' that the station once had an overall roof stretching across the two tracks being demolished sometime about at the turn of the century..

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