Herald - Issue 418

v SAY YOU SAW IT IN THE HERALD v 27th January 2022 • The HERALD • Page 5 DECORATOR INTERIOR & EXTERIOR PAINTING General Small Maintenance Works Reliable, Prompt with a High Standard of Work Fully Insured • Free Estimates NICK CROUCHER 023 8084 8154 or 07594 582194 MP Guttering & Roofing Services • Fascias, Guttering, Soffits, Cladding and much more PVCu work • All roof repairs, gutters, flat roofs, chimney repairs • Moss removal 15% Discount for OAP’s Established 30 years 07730 377114 023 8087 9135 mpgutteringservices@outlook.com The Lepe and Exbury Railway by Robin Somes, Fawley & Blackfield Memories Britain’s railways enjoyed a huge expansion from the 1840’s onwards. The Fawley branch line, opened in 1925, is well-documented. Less well-known is how close the Waterside came to having a railway on a completely different route, running from Totton or Redbridge to Lepe and Exbury, with a ferry crossing to Cowes on the Isle of Wight. It was rst proposed in 1861, with a newspaper announcement: “…the Southampton and Isle of Wight Railway and Pier give notice of their intention to make a railway from Redbridge to Lepe, with a pier there, and to run steam packets to the Isle of Wight”. In 1876, another was advertised: “The Eling, Hythe and Exbury Railway and Pier. - Notice is given that it is intended to apply to Parliament for an Act to construct a railway… from the western end of Totton Station, and terminating in the parish of Fawley… where the boundary between the parishes of Fawley and Exbury crosses Brick-lane; and also for powers to construct a pier on the shores of the Solent, in the parish of Exbury. The railway will pass from, through or into… Eling, Totton, Rumbridge, Dibden, Fawley, Exbury, Iper’s-bridge, Row-down, New Forest, Beaulieu, Beaulieu Heath, Denny-lodge Walk, Holbury, Stone, Lepe, Langley, Hythe, Marchwood, Roughdown, and Blackfield ...”. e Act would: “... authorise the Company to purchase by compulsion lands, houses and property… and to purchase lands by agreement, to levy rates, tolls and duties; to stop up, remove, alter or divert railways, rivers, streams, roads, embankments, groins, culverts, bridges, sewers, drains and pipes, buildings or works…” All went quiet for a few years. en, in 1881, another was proposed: “...commencing in the parish of Eling, ... and terminating on the foreshore… at Stone Point at Lepe…” A year later, the company applied to Parliament for a second railway, linking to the rst, and a second pier at Lepe. Lack of investment nished o all these plans. Despite the railways’ expansion, and a speculative frenzy creating several hundred new companies, they had ceased to be pro table by the 1870’s, and proposals a er that must have been almost pure speculation. Established connections to the Island from Lymington and Southampton o ered strong competition, too. e London and South-Western Railway’s 1903 plans for the Fawley line were discussed periodically for over two decades; only the opening of Fawley’s re nery in 1921 nally provided su cient incentive for the line. If earlier plans had not oundered, the scene at Lepe and Exbury might have been very di erent! The London & South-Western Railway boat train from Southampton to Waterloo (1911)