£25.00
Michael Clemens
Publication Date: 2025
Format & Edition: Hardback, First Edition
Pagination: 112 Pages, 178 Illustrations
Condition: New
Genre: Great Western Railway
Status: In Stock
A Railway Journey Around the Cotswold and Malvern Hills in the 1950s and 1960s by Michael Clemens. This book uses photographs from the archive of Ellis James-Robertson.
The majority of photographs are taken within Worcestershire with many images taken within a few miles of the city. It also covers the Kington and Presteigne branch, the Forest of Dean and the Oxford to Fairford branch.
The journey begins at Worcester’s most photogenic railway location, the crossing of the Worcester & Birmingham canal before moving to Worcester shed. The steeply-graded and lightly-laid ‘Vinegar Branch’ is covered that crossed Shrub Hill Road.
One of Ellis’s favourite locations was the area around Norton Junction where the 1850s-opened Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway crossed over the 1840s-opened Birmingham & Gloucester Railway, together with the link between them from Abbotswood Junction.
Birmingham Snow Hill is seen plus some of that city’s railway rarities, and visits are made to the Severn Valley line in 1963. There are images taken at Evesham, plus Stratford on Avon, Banbury, Chipping Norton and Kingham.
The book also features the Gloucestershire Railway Society’s ‘Cirencester Town and Tetbury Branches Last Steam Train’ rail tour and concludes with the final in-bound freight working in 1965 from Gloucester to Lydbrook.
The pictures include colour ones but are mainly b/w. The pictures include a full-page coloured route availability map of the area covered. The author presents the journey as a set of commentaries for each area with supporting images to the text.