Kingsbridge Secrets.

[Dave]

Kingsbridge Secrets. 25th April 2010

This morning I found myself deep in thought after doing a bit of research on something I was interested in and realalised that todays children may only ever see a place as it is now and never know what it might have been before, I think I need to expain better what I mean.

Now those growing up In newton Abbot right now will see the Job Centre building and the car park opposite and probably won’t know what was there before. Merse and I older people from Newton will remember the bus station being there and opposite the Parcona Coffee House.

I discovered I have been suffering from not knowing what once on a site I visit every week and I only found out today because of a forgotton piece of Kingsbridge's railway history, which has lain hidden and half buried for decades, that has now been literally unearthed in a move to turn it into a new landmark gateway to the town of Kingsbridge.

The old Primrose Line railway bridge on the western entrance to Kingsbridge once brought thousands of rail passengers a year into the heart of the town.

The line was closed and the rails were ripped up in 1963 and a modern road was eventually built to bypass the narrow and no longer needed railway bridge opposite South Hams Hospital.

Over the years the bridge became buried until virtually only the parapet wall was still visible until members of the town tourist information centre and the town's bloom volunteers teamed up to give the old bridge a new lease of life as a kind of living memorial to the old steam rail line which disappeared almost half a century ago.Something like 20 tonnes of soil has now been dug out to expose the old railway tunnels beneath the bridge where the rails used to run.

The Kingsbridge to South Brent line was the original Primrose Line named after the spring flowers which lined its route, most of which followed the River Avon.The line terminated at Kingsbridge Railway Station — now part of an industrial estate — and travellers could carry on by coach to Dartmouth if they so chose.

It was a victim of Dr Beeching's cuts in 1963 when uneconomical branch lines across the Westcountry and elsewhere were savagely axed from British Rail's system.Other lines axed in similar circumstances, such as the Totnes to Buckfastleigh and the Paignton to Kingswear lines, were later saved and continue to be run privately as popular steam railways.However, between Kingsbridge and South Brent the lines were ripped up and many of the bridges were torn down making it virtually impossible for the line to ever reopen.

Until this work had been done recently I never noticed this old railway bridge at all and I have never really given it a thought that Kingsbridge once had its own railway station. The site were it once stood is now a small industrial estate that I go to every Wednesday. I checked on the web today and found some pictures of the old station and I was to learn the main building was still on the site along with the old good sheds.

So Carol and I set of after lunch today to go and investigate the old station site and also go up to the railway bridge that once carried the traffic into Kingsbridge from Plymouth .I found the goods yard buildings but could not really decide what building may have been the main station building. In some pictures I found this morning taken about 10 years ago the building had the canopies removed and there was a few coaches parked in front of it.

I do know there was a large fire in buildings used by the coach firm about two years ago and one building had to be completly rebuilt and I wonder if that was the main station building, I will ask when I go there after my holiday.

The Kingsbridge high street in places reminds me Of Totnes, some of the buildings look like they would have been built around the same time and I have always wondered why the main street was built where it was, as it’s the steepest part of the area. You drive up it and you see the locals struggling up and down the steep street and yet the land over where the old railway station once was is much flatter and would have made a much better main street in my view and would not have suffered any flooding from the estuary.

The Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary is unusual because it has no large river feeding it – just a series of small streams from Frogmore, Bowcombe, Batson, East Allington, Sherford and other surrounding villages, rising at springs some 140 metres above sea level.

The Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary is tidal up as far as Kingsbridge, the bridging point 5 miles inland. Like the other estuaries of South Devon, the original deep river valley has been inundated by later sea level rise, with the tide flooding in to create a wide expanse of water.

I had the time of my life discovering some real hidden gems today and many were on the main street itself, little passageways with such names as Melbourne Place, Matthews Passage, Baptist Lane I never knew were there and I walked into most up them and discovered rows of small terraced cottages.

As we got near the bottom of the street I saw a sign that had the words “Back Way” written on it and so I had to check it out. I was fascinated to find Carol and I were at first walking on a flattish path with a small leat running beside the path and I later discovered that some of those hidden passages ways I found in the main street, (the ones on the right going down the hill) came out onto the path we were walking on.

It was not too long before we found we were walking up a very steep part and once we did that part we found ourselves standing at the very top of the main street where we had started from.

So instead of walking down the main street again we walked the other way to go and take some pictures of the old railway bridge and then went down the flatter route I knew to take us to end of the estuary and the bottom of Kingsbridge.

We passed a place with a name that Merse will know well as there is a place in Newton Abbot with the same name, only they don't look the same, DEVON SQUARE.

When the tide is in the estuary looks beautiful; when it’s out it looks ugly with all the mud( Carol loves walking in mud by rivers as you know) with a small amount of water running just down the middle that comes from that leat in the Back Way.

I remember 20 or 30 years ago there was a boat that had been converted into a café that was moored at the end of estuary and sadly its long since gone. It’s impossible this time of the year to get anything to eat on a Sunday afternoon in Kingsbridge and so we had to make do with an ice-cream (99 for me) from what must be one of the oldest surviving ice-cream vans

We walked out the way the cars come in from Totnes and there are some really great terraced cottages along that street, I had to get a shot of them and took a bonus one for merse as the bus was coming down the hill.

I looked to my right and through a gap in the buildings I could see the Bowling Green in full swing and a bit further on we saw a play park we walked through and then discovered another secret passage that ended up at the top of the main street just where our car was parked. Perfect.