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Transport In Dorset
Dorset is a county in South West England. The county is largely rural and therefore does not have a dense transport network, and is one of the few English counties without a motorway. Owing to its position on the English Channel coast, and its natural sheltered harbours, it has a maritime history, though lack of inland transport routes has led to the decline of its ports. Rail Dorset is connected to London by two main railway lines. The West of England Main Line runs through the north of the county at Gillingham and Sherborne. The electric South West Main Line runs through the south of the county, at Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester and the terminus at Weymouth, and was part of the London and South Western Railway (later Southern Railway). Additionally, a secondary line, the Heart of Wessex Line runs from Weymouth to Bristol, via Yeovil and Bath, in Somerset. This line was part of the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (later Great Western Railway). Railway closures in ...
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Dorset Transport
Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south-east, the English Channel to the south, and Devon to the west. The largest settlement is Bournemouth, and the county town is Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. The county has an area of and a population of 772,268. Around half of the population lives in the South East Dorset conurbation, which contains three of the county's largest settlements: Bournemouth (183,491), Poole (151,500), and Christchurch, Dorset, Christchurch (31,372). The remainder of the county is largely rural, and its principal towns are Weymouth, Dorset, Weymouth (53,427) and Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester (21,366). Dorset contains two Unitary authorities in England, unitary districts: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) ...
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Heart Of Wessex Line
The Heart of Wessex Line, also known as the Bristol to Weymouth Line, is a railway line that runs from to and Weymouth in England. It shares the Wessex Main Line as far as Westbury and then follows the course of the Reading to Taunton Line as far as . History Places served The cities, towns and villages served by this route are listed below: *Bristol *Keynsham *Bath * Freshford * Avoncliff *Bradford on Avon *Trowbridge * Westbury * Frome *Bruton * Castle Cary *Yeovil * Thornford * Yetminster * Chetnole * Maiden Newton * Dorchester * Upwey * Weymouth Operator Passenger services on the route are operated by Great Western Railway. Most Great Western services originate from Gloucester. Some originate from other places such as and Cheltenham. As of May 2025, the weekday service on this line is hourly between Gloucester and Westbury, with a train in approximately every 2 hours running the whole way to Weymouth. There are only 3 departures each way between Bristol and Weymouth ...
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Sturminster Newton
Sturminster Newton is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish situated on the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour in the north of Dorset, England. The town is at the centre of the Blackmore Vale, a large dairy agriculture region around which the town's economy is built, and is known as 'the heart of the Blackmore vale'. The town has shops, a primary and secondary school – Sturminster Newton High School – and a school and college catering for children with special education, special educational needs. A market is held in the town on Mondays. One of the largest cattle markets in England used to be held here, but it was closed in 1998. The town is noted for its connections with the authors Thomas Hardy and William Barnes, and as part of the historic West Country Carnival circuit. History Sturminster Newton was recorded in an Anglo-Saxon charter in 968 as ''Nywetone at Stoure'', and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Newentone''. Newton refers to a new farm or e ...
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Blandford Forum
Blandford Forum ( ) is a market town in Dorset, England, on the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour, north-west of Poole. It had a population of 10,355 at the United Kingdom 2021 census, 2021 census. The town is notable for its Georgian architecture, the result of rebuilding after a major fire in 1731; it was assisted by an Act of Parliament and a donation by George II of Great Britain, George II, to designs by local architects Bastard brothers, John and William Bastard. The town's economy is based on a mix of the Tertiary sector of the economy, service sector and light industry. Blandford Camp, a military base, is on the hills north-east of the town. It is the base of the Royal Corps of Signals, the communications wing of the British Army, and the site of the Royal Signals Museum. History Blandford has been a ford (river), fording point on the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour since Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon times. The name Blandford derives from the Old English ''blǣ ...
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River Stour, Dorset
The River Stour is a river which flows through Wiltshire and Dorset in southern England, and drains into the English Channel. The catchment area for the river and its tributaries is listed as . Toponymy It is sometimes called the Dorset Stour to distinguish it from other rivers of the same name in Kent, Suffolk and the Midlands. According to Brewer's ''Dictionary of Britain & Ireland'', the name Stour rhymes with ''hour'' and derives from Old English meaning "violent", "fierce" or the "fierce one". History The river burst its banks at Christchurch during the 2013–14 winter floods and 100 residents were evacuated. Prehistoric archaeology The Stour valley has produced rich evidence for early human (Palaeolithic) activity. Gravel pits in the lower reaches of the river (many underlying modern day Bournemouth) produced hundreds of Lower Palaeolithic handaxes when they were quarried, particular during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Archaeologic ...
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Somerset And Dorset Joint Railway
The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR, also known as the S&D, S&DR or SDJR), was an English railway line Joint railway, jointly owned by the Midland Railway (MR) and the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) that grew to connect Bath, Somerset, Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (then in Hampshire; now in south-east Dorset), with a branch in Somerset from Evercreech Junction railway station, Evercreech Junction to Burnham-on-Sea and Bridgwater. Strictly speaking, its main line only ran from Bath Junction to Broadstone, Dorset, Broadstone, as the Bath to Bath Junction section was wholly owned by the MR and the Broadstone to Bournemouth section was owned by the LSWR. Brought under joint ownership in 1876, the S&DJR was used for freight and local passenger traffic over the Mendip Hills, and for weekend holiday traffic to Bournemouth. Criticised as the "Slow and Dirty" or the "Slow and Doubtful", it closed in 1966 as part of the Beeching axe despite protests f ...
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Bridport Railway
The Bridport Railway was a railway branch line that operated in the county of Dorset in England. It connected Bridport with the main line network at Maiden Newton, and opened on 12 November 1857. It was extended to West Bay, Dorset, West Bay in 1884, but the extension was not well used and it closed to passengers in 1930. The remaining branch closed in 1975. Origins During the 1840s a number of railway schemes had been proposed, that would have put Bridport on a main line from London to Exeter. This included the Bridport and Exeter Railway, and schemes to extend the London and South Western Railway to Exeter from Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. As late as 1853 there was a firm proposal to build such a line, but it fell through and the present-day route via Yeovil was adopted instead. Dismayed at being abandoned from the main line system, businessmen in Bridport observed that the Great Western Railway (GWR) was making plans to extend its partly built line, the Wilts, Somerset ...
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Beeching Axe
The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named for Dr. Richard Beeching, then-chair of the British Railways Board and the author of two reports''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes'' (1965) that set out proposals for restructuring the railway network, with the stated aim of improving economic efficiency. The first report identified 2,363 stations and of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and the loss of 67,700 British Rail jobs, with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running. The second report identified a small number of major routes f ...
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Portland Branch Railway
The Portland Branch railway refers to a group of lines on the Isle of Portland in the English county of Dorset. The first was the Portland Railway, a tramway with a counterbalanced rope-worked incline. It opened in 1826. It was followed by the Weymouth and Portland Railway, which connected to the main line of the Great Western Railway at Weymouth. It opened in 1865. From the late 1840s until 1872, Portland Breakwater was built, a prodigious construction task that created a very large safe harbour. It was decided to provide a railway connection to the breakwater, which was used as a pier for bunkering ships. This was constructed by the LSWR and the GWR jointly and opened in 1876. The fourth line was the Easton and Church Hope Railway. This line was conceived as a simple descent to bring stone down from quarries to a new jetty at Church Ope, but after their line was authorised in 1867, the Company delayed useful construction, and a change of plan followed, with several acts of P ...
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Abbotsbury
Abbotsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. The village is located around west southwest of Dorchester and inland from the English Channel coast. In the 2021 census the civil parish had a population of 451. Abbotsbury has been described as a tourism honeypot, known for its picturesque historic buildings and thatched cottages, its variety of tourist attractions, and as a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and Dorset National Landscape. Abbotsbury is known for its swannery, subtropical gardens and surviving abbey buildings, including St Catherine's Chapel, a 14th-century pilgrimage chapel that stands on a hill between the village and the coast. The coastline within the parish includes a section of Chesil Beach, and the South West Coast Path and Macmillan Way long-distance footpaths pass through the village. The Ilchester Estate owns much of the village, including the swannery and subtropical gardens. The estate owns of l ...
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Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of —later slightly widened to —but, from 1854, a series of Consolidation (business), amalgamations saw it also operate Standard gauge, standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was Nationalization, nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways. ...
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Wilts, Somerset And Weymouth Railway
The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained an act of Parliament giving powers to build the line in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dorset. It opened the first part of the network but found it impossible to raise further money and sold its line to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1850. The GWR took over the construction and undertook to build an adjacent connecting line; the network was complete in 1857. In the early years of the 20th century the GWR wanted to shorten its route from London to the West of England and built "cut-off" lines in succession to link part of the WS&WR network, so that by 1906 the express trains ran over the Westbury to Castle Cary section. In 1933 further improvements were made, and that part of the line was established as part of the "holiday line" to Devon and Cornwall. The network was already a major trunk rou ...
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