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STEPHEN ROBERTS’ latest journey following in the footsteps of Bradshaw’s 1863 handbook takes him from Warwickshire to the Chilterns and ‘Metro-land’
For the eighth instalment of my ‘Britain by Bradshaw’, I’m heading to Warwickshire to board a train at Leamington Spa, then travelling south as far as Beaconsfield before retracing my steps to Princes Risborough.
From here I can take the little branch across to Aylesbury, then head south again on a line roughly parallel to the one I was on earlier, ending my journey at Harrow-on-the-Hill.
As with my previous journeys, I’ll be attempting as much of it as possible in ‘Bradshaw 1863’-style - although in this journey, more than any other I’ve attempted, Bradshaw will only take me so far.
That’s because the Chiltern Main Line that I’ll be following between Leamington and Beaconsfield was built in three stages, and my handbook will only have known of the first phase - completed by the GWR in 1852 when its Birmingham and Oxford line connected Birmingham Snow Hill with London Paddington.
The trouble was that this route via the GWR main line to Didcot, then Oxford, Banbury and Leamington, was 16 miles longer than the LNWR’s Birmingham New Street to London Euston via Rugby offering.
As far as my 1863 trip is concerned, I can’t get any further south than Aynho Junction, which is situated about halfway between Banbury and Bicester.
The first step towards competitiveness was the 1906 GWR and GCR Joint Railway between Northolt and Ashendon Junction - about halfway between Princes Risborough and Bicester. The gap was closing.
The final part of the jigsaw came with the completion of the Bicester cut-off in 1910 - an 18¼-mile line via Bicester North which occupied the previous gap between Ashenden Junction and Aynho Junction.
Leamington Spa
As befits a spa, there are choices of hostelry - the Regent, Clarendon, and Bath. The central Regent, on the Parade, opened in 1819 with actress Sarah Siddons on parade. Today, it’s a Travelodge.
In 1830, the 11-year-old Princess Victoria stayed here. This must have gone swimmingly, as eight years later the young lass (now Queen) bestowed the ‘Royal’ on Leamington Spa.
Bradshaw tells me that the town, which “50 years since was an obscure and humble village”, was now “a large and handsome town, containing 17,958 inhabitants” (more like 50,000 today).
He mentions “the Great Western and North Western Companies, each of which has a station in the town”.
Today’s station is the former GWR one.
Dating to 1852, it became Leamington Spa in 1913 and was rebuilt in 1937-39 - hence today’s Art Deco look, which would be unrecognisable to Bradshaw.
However, the LNWR line had actually reached the town eight years earlier in 1844 (its Milve
