Symonds Yat railway station

Symonds Yat
Symonds Yat Tunnel with train emerging 1895
General information
LocationSymonds Yat, Herefordshire
England
Coordinates51°50′18″N 2°38′19″W / 51.8384°N 2.6387°W / 51.8384; -2.6387
Grid referenceSO561157
Platforms2
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Pre-groupingRoss and Monmouth Railway
Post-groupingGreat Western Railway
Key dates
4 August 1873Opened
5 January 1959Closed

Symonds Yat railway station is a disused railway station on the Ross and Monmouth Railway constructed on the banks of the River Wye in Symonds Yat East.

Opened in 1873, it consisted of two platforms and a timber station building on the down platform, it closed in 1959 with the closure of the line.[1] The railways were at first used as a quick means of bringing the boats back from Chepstow.[2]

Symonds Yat station site, now buried under a car park

A camping coach was positioned here by the Western Region from 1953 to 1958; an early form of self-catering accommodation which used converted redundant railway carriages for occupation by holidaymakers who could arrive and depart by train.[3] Today the station site has long been levelled but the foundations of the station building and platforms remain and the area now forms a car parking area for a local hotel inn.


Preceding station   Disused railways   Following station
Hadnock Halt   Ross and Monmouth Railway
British Railways
  Lydbrook Junction
  1. ^ Handley, Brian M.; Dingwall, Rod (1982). The Wye Valley Railway and the Coleford Branch. Oakwood Press. ISBN 978-0-85361-530-9.
  2. ^ Kissack, Keith E. (1975). Monmouth: The Making of a County Town. London: Phillimore & Co. p. 255. ISBN 978-0-85033-209-4.
  3. ^ McRae, Andrew (1998). British Railways Camping Coach Holidays: A Tour of Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Scenes from the Past. Vol. 30 (Part Two). Foxline. p. 95. ISBN 1-870119-53-3.