SITUATED between two viaducts, the Holsworthy Railway Station that many residents remember wasn’t in fact the first station to serve the town - for it opened in 1898.

The railways had reached the town on January 20, 1879, as the then termination point of the line from Meldon Junction as the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) continued its bid to expand into the South West, which was then dominated by the Great Western Mainline on the other side of Devon.

Like most of the territory that the LSWR sought to serve, Holsworthy back then was relatively small in population but an important market town that the railway company wished to serve.

Proposals for a railway line to reach the town went back as far as 1865, however the dream was unrealised for 15 years as previous bids to build a line came to nothing. The first proposal would have seen Holsworthy as a stop on a line from Okehampton to Bude and was given permission by Parliament under the Bude Canal and Launceston Junction Railway Act.

However, these powers would then lapse because construction work had not commenced as those behind the proposals lacked the finance to turn the plans into reality.

In 1873, a second plan to reach Holsworthy came in the form of proposals from the ‘Devon and Cornwall Railway’, which obtained permission under the Devon and Cornwall Railway (Extensions) Act, and would have seen a line from Meldon Junction to Holsworthy. A year later, the Devon and Cornwall Railway was purchased by the LSWR, who would make the plans a reality.

Despite vociferous protestations from their neighbours across the Tamar in Bude who wanted a piece of the railway action themselves, the promoters did not see the town as important enough to bring their railway services to.

In the meantime, the nearest that Bude would get to a railway station until 1898 was by making the trip to Holsworthy through the use of a ‘smart horse-bus’, offered by the LSWR in lieu of a railway line.

However, the residents of Bude were not to be ignored and after raising £1,000 for a station to come their way in 1883 came to nothing, it would be their eventual victory and the acquiescence of the recalcitrant LSWR that 15 years after raising the not-insignificant sum, that the railways would eventually reach their side of the Tamar.

It would be the extension of the railway line to Bude that would see the railway station at Holsworthy being slightly relocated and rebuilt. No plans or photographs are believed to exist of the first station which was likely to have been relatively primitive in its construction. The first station was located next to Coles Mill Viaduct, but it is understood that the construction of the second station was more-or-less at the same location as the first, and it is this station that would serve until the station’s closure.

The extension of the railway line to Bude would also create an unusual spectre within the railway world; a railway station built between two viaducts, with the station built between Coles Mill Viaduct and Derriton Viaduct, the latter of which is now a popular vantage point for sight-seers upon climbing the ‘Cornish corkscrew’.

At the station were some minor remnants of the original station, namely the turntable (until 1911), engine shed and a goods shed, the latter of which was regarded as ‘unusually complicated’ for a small station and demolished in the 1920s.

For many years, the station’s services included the iconic Atlantic Coast Express from London Waterloo. However, this service was withdrawn in January 1963 when the line was transferred to the Western Region of British Railways. The end of the express service signaled more cuts ahead; just two months later, Dr Richard Beeching, Chairman of the British Transport Commission, proposed closing the station and line in his infamous Reshaping the British Railways report.

In its final years, the Holsworthy service was diminished and reduced to local trains operated entirely by Diesel Multiple Units, running between Okehampton and Bude.

Today, very little remains of Holsworthy Railway Station, with the post-railway remnants reduced to a state of rubble and dereliction soon after its closure on October 3, 1966 with the site forming the location of a Waitrose supermarket. Nearby reminders of the location’s past include the adjacent ‘Station Road’ retaining its name and the sight of the overbridge next to it.

However, the trackbed still plays a vital role in the transport solutions to the town, and while there seems to be little sign of any return of the railways to the town whose population increased by 15 per cent in the remaining years of the 20th century, it has been part of other solutions aiming to face the challenges in terms of public transport provision.

Torridge District Council previously acknowledged that “Holsworthy is not well served by public transport,” particularly in relation to connections with Bideford, Barnstaple, and Great Torrington, which are currently accessible only via infrequent bus services. Links to Exeter and Plymouth are even more limited, with some services operating only once a week or not at all.

In response to these limitations, one initiative has been the development of a dedicated cycle route. The “Ruby Way,” part of the National Cycle Network, was opened in 2005 and follows the former railway trackbed, providing a connection between Holsworthy, Bude, and Halwill.

This project restored the historic Derriton Viaduct for public use, and both the viaduct and the surrounding trackbed are now under the ownership of Sustrans. Torridge District Council has confirmed that these assets are protected from future development in line with local planning policies.

Hopes remain that the overgrown Coles Mill Viaduct might one day join the route, however it is in private ownership and attempts to contact the owner have not yet been successful, according to a 2019 Freedom of Information Act response by Torridge District Council, which had spent £40,000 on the viaduct as part of the £500,000 Ruby Way project.