Return to Templecombe

There has always been something special about Templecombe. I only ever went there twice and both times we were staying in Somerset on our annual family holidays. They were the last two we all took together before I branched out and went away with my friends instead. I use the term “family holiday” rather loosely. As you can see from the few dates provided, the family just had to get on without me for much of the time, while I indulged myself on the railways.

Below are the entries in my train spotting notebooks for my visits of 3/8/64 and 1/8/65, when I was aged 15 and 16. In 1964, I cycled to Templecombe from our guest house in the village of Stoke St Michael. As I climbed up the incline on the short approach road to the station, Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” wafted out from the open window of an adjacent cottage. We were already intoxicated by the explosion of 60’s pop music, and big vibrant hits like this one just kept on coming throughout the period from a whole range of groups. On that morning, it simply added to the excitement and anticipation that I already felt, having finally arrived at my destination after a bit of a slog down the A357.

By 1964, I had become mesmerised by the Southern Pacifics. I had only made their acquaintance in any numbers a year before, during our first family holiday to the south west, when I was almost beside myself to have actually reached Exmouth Junction sheds. Copping Southern namers then became the priority. I would have to hurry or they would be gone.

I guess I was on Templecombe station for about 4 or 5 hours on that day, during which time I saw 4 Merchant Navy Class, including 3 that were new to me and 4 light Pacifics, all of which I had seen before. I cabbed 34079 141 Squadron, which for many months previous to the summer of 1963 had been the only underlined Southern engine in my combined volume, after it had visited Crewe on a special train.

On arrival, the first visible link to the old Somerset and Dorset Railway was ex-GWR    0-6-0 No. 3218. It took its passenger train down the steep descent on a sharp curve out of the station to the north. The Warship diesels that would soon take over most of the main line duties from steam on the ex-LSWR main line from London Waterloo to Exeter also put in an appearance early in the day, in the shape of D869 Zest.

In 1965, I travelled by bus from Crewkerne to Templecombe and it seems from my notes that I only went around the sheds and did not visit the station at all. That was probably because of the impact that dieselisation was having on my choice of location. The sheds were extremely quiet, I remember, providing quite a contrast with my time on the platforms the year before, when Templecombe had still seemed to be a fairly leisurely, but fully functioning, country junction station. The public-address system still liked to make a bit of an occasion out of the arrival of its express trains to and from the capital. There was hardly anyone there when I bunked around the MPD a year later and only one or two unattended locomotives appeared to be in steam. It was on its last legs.

I don’t quite know why it is that I cling so doggedly to the memories of these two days that happened over half a century ago. After all, a whole career has sped through in the intervening decades. I can only think it is because I found the experience so exhilarating and spellbinding when it occurred. It’s something to do with that whole freshness of youth thing, that propensity to embrace with relish all those experiences which are new and stimulating. It stands out in a way that leaves Chris totally perplexed by my capacity to re-live it time and time again. Sad, it may be, but true.

All of which brings me back into the present with a jolt. An invitation has been received for us to attend a special double birthday party celebration, near Wincanton in Somerset. That’s pretty close to Templecombe, I think - then dare to say. After brief negotiations, we agree to fit a whistle stop visit in on our way back from holiday in Cornwall. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, under dark and threatening clouds, exactly 50 years and 22 days since I was there last.

The houses on the run up to the station - looking very much like former railwaymen’s cottages, in fact - were still there, but there were no sounds of the 60’s emanating from any open windows. I pulled up in the car park. A voice in my head said “Never go back,” but it was too late. We were there. I looked around for the familiar landmarks that matched the clear mental pictures I had carried around with me ever since I had first landed there. They were few and far between.

Two years after closure in 1966, the old station buildings were removed, apart from the Art Deco - and very Southern Railways - 1930’s design signalbox, which still stands at the western end of the former up platform. It provided a welcome reminder of my previous visit. The station reopened in 1983, following successful local pressure for a reinstated rail service, allied to an optimistic survey of potential usage by Somerset County Council. A replacement footbridge, actually of 1893 vintage and acquired from Buxted in East Sussex, was positioned to connect the car park on the down side of the single track to the original up platform, and a red brick waiting room was erected there, too, adjacent to the signalbox.

On its northern side, this original up main line island platform was still served in the early 1960’s by both northbound and southbound trains coming up the spur from the S&D, so that passengers could make direct connections with the Southern Region main line services. The S&D trains then reversed back down the hill before continuing towards Bath or Bournemouth. There is no obvious visible trace of this connection today and the far side of the platform is occupied by trees and foliage with no view possible beyond them.

More recently, an extension has been added to the remains of the former down main line platform, so that it, too, is alongside the remaining single track, which lies on the up side of the formation. A bus stop style open shelter has now been constructed here and the footbridge closed so there is no longer any access to the old up platform. Boarding trains is now from the new platform only.

Re-signalling led to the closure of the signalbox. The need to rely on a barrow crossing for wheelchair users and anyone else who found the footbridge difficult when accessing the previously used up platform have been overcome. The area where the former main station building stood, as well as the forecourt and part of the old down side platform, are all now car parking spaces. A covered waiting area has since been put up here also.

The 1930’s signalbox at Templecombe station

The former Buxted footbridge, now obsolete for a second time, spans the single track.

From somewhere close to where I had watched No. 3218 move off down the hill in 1964, I noticed a bronze statue, a figure with its back to us. It is set in what looks like an extension of someone’s back garden on the far side of the up platform at the London end and there was no obvious explanation for its presence from our side of the line. By then, it had begun to rain and so we were left to surmise as we made our way to a rendezvous with friends at our overnight accommodation, prior to the big do.

Back home again, the internet informed me that the sculpture is the result of a collaborative piece for which the sculptor was Sioban Coppinger, a name I recognised. As well as being a friend of my brother-in-law, she had an interesting piece in concrete on display much closer to home in the grounds of Rufford Abbey, which depicted a full-size sheep sitting at one end of a bench with a man at the other end and called, not surprisingly, “Man and Ewe on Park Bench.” It was very noticeable and it made lots of people smile on first viewing, including me.

The Templecombe sculpture is called “Tempus Fugit.” It dates from 1990, and it is a sundial cast in bronze. It shows a railwayman holding a railway timetable. Leaves from the book have fallen in an arc at his feet, represented by stone slabs, the positioning of which enables the sundial to come to life each day [when it is not raining]. In 2010, Templecombe Station Volunteers came together to return the station garden to its former glory. Tidying up the sculpture was one of their stated intentions.

Retrospectively, I now feel incredibly lucky to have got to Templecombe at all. I am grateful to my folks for choosing deepest rural England for a succession of holidays between 1963 and 1965. It meant that I visited Templecombe in ’64 and ’65 and, of course, the whole caboodle was gone by the summer of ’66, except for the through services from London to Exeter. It was cutting it fine and I don’t think that at the time I quite took in that I was witnessing the S&D’s final fling, though I would certainly have known that it was under threat as part of the avalanche of closures launched by Dr Beeching a few years before. I’m so glad that I made it there in time.