Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is an important transport hub for public transport in the city. In addition to the train services there are bus services to many parts of the city and surrounding districts, and a ferry to the city centre. Bristol's other major station, Bristol Parkway, is on the northern outskirts of the conurbation.
| Bristol Temple Meads | |
|---|---|
.jpg/440px-Bristol_Temple_Meads_station_(6466232797).jpg) Facade of the station | |
| Location | Redcliffe, City of Bristol England |
| Coordinates | 51°26′56″N 2°34′48″W / 51.449°N 2.580°WCoordinates: 51°26′56″N 2°34′48″W / 51.449°N 2.580°W |
| Grid reference | ST597725 |
| Managed by | Network Rail |
| Platforms | 13 |
| Other information | |
| Station code | BRI |
| Classification | DfT category A |
| History | |
| Original company | Great Western Railway |
| Key dates | |
| 1840 | Opened |
| 1871–1878 | Extended |
| 1930s | Extended |
| 1965 | Original platforms closed |
| Passengers | |
| 2015/16 |  10.711 million |
| Interchange | 1.477 million |
| 2016/17 | 11.337 million |
| Interchange | 1.513 million |
| 2017/18 | 11.350 million |
| Interchange |  1.477 million |
| 2018/19 | 11.368 million |
| Interchange | 1.454 million |
| 2019/20 | 11.619 million |
| Interchange | 1.632 million |
| Listed Building – Grade I | |
| Feature | Temple Meads Station |
| Designated | 1 November 1966 |
| Reference no. | 1282106[1] |
| Notes | |
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road | |
Temple Meads was opened on 31 August 1840 as the western terminus of the Great Western Railway from London Paddington, 116 miles 31 chains (187.3 km) from Paddington. The railway (including Temple Meads) was the first to be designed by the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Soon the station was also used by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, the Bristol Harbour Railway and the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway. To accommodate the increasing number of trains, the station was expanded in the 1870s by Francis Fox and again between 1930 and 1935 by Percy Emerson Culverhouse.[1] Brunel's terminus is no longer part of the operational station. The historical significance of the station has been noted, and most of the site is Grade I listed.[1]
The platforms are numbered 1 to 15 but passenger trains are confined to just eight tracks. Most platforms are numbered separately at each end, with odd numbers at the east end and even numbers at the west. Platform 2 is not signalled for passenger trains, and there is no platform 14.[2]
Temple Meads is managed by Network Rail[3] and the majority of services are operated by the present-day Great Western Railway. Other operators are CrossCountry and South Western Railway. In the 12 months to March 2014, 9.5 million entries and exits were recorded at the station.
In Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations by Simon Jenkins, the station was one of only ten to be awarded five stars.[4]
History
The name Temple Meads derives from the nearby Temple Church, which was gutted by bombing during World War II.[5] The word "meads" is a derivation of "mæd", an Old English variation of "mædwe", meadow, referring to the water meadows alongside the River Avon that were part of Temple parish. As late as 1820 the site was undeveloped pasture outside the boundaries of the old city,[6] some distance from the commercial centre. It lay between the Floating Harbour and the city's cattle market, which was built in 1830.
Brunel's station
The original terminus was built in 1839–41 for the Great Western Railway (GWR), the first passenger railway in Bristol, and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the railway's engineer.[7] It was built to accommodate Brunel's 7 ft (2,134 mm) broad gauge. The station was on a viaduct to raise it above the level of the Floating Harbour and River Avon, the latter being crossed via the grade I listed Avon Bridge. The station was covered by a 200-foot (60 m) train shed, extended beyond the platforms by 155 feet (47 m) into a storage area and engine shed, fronted by an office building in the Tudor style.[8] Train services to Bath commenced on 31 August 1840 and were extended to Paddington on 30 June 1841 following the completion of Box Tunnel.[9]
A few weeks before the start of the services to Paddington the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) had opened, on 14 June 1841,[10] its trains reversing in and out of the GWR station. The third railway at Temple Meads was the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, which opened on 8 July 1844 and was taken over by the Midland Railway (MR) on 1 July 1845.[9] This used the GWR platforms, diverging onto its own line on the far side of the bridge over the Floating Harbour. Both these new railways were engineered by Brunel and were initially broad gauge.[10] Brunel also designed the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway, but this was not opened until 25 August 1863, nearly four years after his death. It terminated at Temple Meads.
Bristol and Exeter Railway station
In 1845 the B&ER built its own station at right angles to the GWR station and an "express platform" on the curve linking the two lines so that through trains no longer had to reverse. The wooden B&ER station was known locally as "The Cowshed";[8] but a grand headquarters was built at street level on the west side of its station in 1852–54 to the Jacobean designs of Samuel Fripp.[7] The Bristol and Portishead Pier and Railway opened a branch off the Bristol and Exeter line west of the city on 18 April 1867, the trains being operated by the B&ER and using its platforms at Temple Meads.[11]
In 1850 an engine shed had been opened on the south bank of the River Avon on the east side of the line to the B&ER station.[12] Between 1859 and 1875, 23 engines were built in the workshops attached to the shed, including several distinctive Bristol and Exeter Railway 4-2-4T locomotives.[13]
Goods stations
The GWR built a 326-by-138-foot (99 m × 42 m) goods shed on the north side of the station adjacent to the Floating Harbour, with a small dock for transhipment of goods to barges (not seagoing ships, as the wharf was upstream of Bristol Bridge). Wagons had to be lowered 12 feet (4 m) to the goods shed on hoists. On 11 March 1872, a direct connection to the harbour was made in the form of the Bristol Harbour Railway, a joint operation of the three railways, which ran between the passenger station and the goods yard, across the street outside on a bridge, and descended into a tunnel under the churchyard of St. Mary Redcliffe on its way to a wharf downstream of Bristol Bridge.[8]
The B&ER had a goods depot at Pylle Hill (south of the station) from 1850, and the MR had an independent yard at Avonside Wharf on the opposite side of the Floating Harbour from 1858.[14]
Effects of the change of gauge
On 29 May 1854 the Midland Railway laid a third rail along their line to Gloucester to provide mixed gauge so that it could operate 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge passenger trains while broad gauge goods trains could still run to collieries north of Bristol. Sidings at South Wales Junction allowed traffic to be transhipped between wagons on the two different gauges. The GWR continued to operate its trains on the broad gauge,[9] but on 3 September 1873 it opened the standard gauge Bristol and North Somerset Railway. This had a junction nearly 1⁄2 mile (800 m) from the station on the London line and so mixed gauge was extended to that point. During the following year mixed gauge track was continued beyond Bath in connection with the conversion of the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway to standard gauge. Mixed gauge was laid through Box Tunnel on 16 May 1875 and so standard gauge trains could run to London, although broad gauge was retained west of Temple Meads and through trains from London to Penzance and other stations in Devon and Cornwall continued to be broad gauge.[10] Goods traffic was transhipped between the two gauges in the B&ER yard at Pylle Hill.
The B&ER converted the line to Taunton to mixed gauge by 1 June 1875, but the remainder of the line to Exeter was not done until 1 March 1876, three months after the B&ER had amalgamated with the GWR. The remainder of the lines beyond Exeter were converted to standard gauge on 21 May 1892[10] so the extra rails at Temple Meads fell into disuse and were removed to leave a purely standard gauge layout. This allowed the through station to be rebuilt with two additional platform faces.[8]
1870s expansion
The additional railway routes put the two short 140-yard (130 m) platforms of Brunel's terminus under pressure and a scheme was developed to extend the station. An enabling Act of Parliament was passed in 1865 and between 1871 and 1878 the station was extensively rebuilt. Brunel's platforms were extended by 212 yards (194 m) towards London and a new three-platform through station built on the site of the express platform, while the B&ER station was closed and the site used for a new carriage shed.[15] This work is usually attributed to Brunel's former associate Matthew Digby Wyatt, but there is no documentary evidence of his involvement in the Minutes of the Station Joint Committee. The only signature on the drawings is that of Francis Fox, the engineer of the B&ER.[16] The curved wrought-iron train shed over the new through platforms was 500 feet (150 m) long on the platform wall. The goods depot was rebuilt with the inconvenient wagon hoists replaced by a steep incline from the east end of Temple Meads, which meant that the sidings in the goods shed were at right angles to their original alignment and the barge dock was filled in.[14]
Trains on the Bristol and South Wales Union and the Midland routes operated from the terminal platforms while the GWR used the new through platforms.[8] The capital costs of the new work were split 4/14 GWR/B&ER and 10/14 MR, operating costs were split GWR 3/8, MR 3/8 and B&ER 2/8. Hence when the GWR absorbed the B&ER in 1876 the split was GWR 5/8 and MR (later LMS) 3/8, until nationalisation on 1 January 1948.[16]
Twentieth-century changes
In 1924 the goods depot was rebuilt with 15 platforms, each 575 feet (175 m) long. Large warehousing and cellar space was provided to store goods, although by this time another city centre goods depot had been opened at Canons Marsh.[14]
Between 1930 and 1935 the through station was expanded under the direction of the GWR's chief architect P E Culverhouse, in art deco style, both eastwards over the old cattle market and southwards on a new wider bridge across Cattle Market Road and the New Cut of the River Avon. This made room for the addition of five through-platform faces, while the removal of the narrow island platforms in the middle of the train shed allowed the main Up and Down platforms to be both widened and lengthened.[15] All the routes approaching Temple Meads were widened to four tracks to allow more flexibility.[14]
As part of this work four manual signal boxes were replaced by three power signal boxes, and the semaphore signals and mechanical point linkages were replaced by colour light signals and point motors. The new Bristol Temple Meads East box was the largest on the GWR with 368 miniature levers operated by three signalmen assisted by a "booking boy". The other two boxes were at Bristol Temple Meads West, and controlling the movements in and out of the new Bath Road Depot, which replaced the old B&ER locomotive works in 1934.[14]
During World War II the station was bombed, which led to the destruction of the wooden spire of the clock tower above the ticket office on 3 January 1941.[15] Gas lighting was replaced by fluorescent electric lights in 1960.[14]
Bristol Panel Signal Box was built on the site of the Platform 14. When opened it controlled 280 multiple-aspect signals and 243 motor-worked points on 114 miles (183 km) of route, the largest area controlled by a single signal box on British Rail at the time.[17]
The construction of this signal box, completed in 1970, involved the demolition of almost half of the 1870s extension to Brunel's terminus and completely blocked rail access to the Old Station.[18]
A second main-line station serving the city, Bristol Parkway, opened in 1972. It is on the northern outskirts of the conurbation close to the M32 motorway and was designed as a park and ride facility for long-distance travellers.[19]
In the late 1960s the Royal Mail built a mail conveyor at the northern end of the station, with significant aesthetic impact. This was out of use for many years following the transfer of Royal Mail's activities to the West of England Mail Centre at Filton and the opening of the short-lived Railnet Hub next to Bristol Parkway station in May 2000.[20] It was finally dismantled in stages and removed between October and December 2014.[21] In 1990/91, £2 million was spent by InterCity on a renovation of the main train shed and another £7 million on restoring some of the older areas of the station, including the refurbishment of the subway and construction of new retail outlets. The shorter of the two 1935 platform islands had been used only for parcels traffic since the 1960s but was temporarily brought back into passenger use during this work. It was fully restored for passenger use in 2001.[15]
In August 1998, a 15-month, £7 million project commenced with work performed on the external facade, clocktower, roof and paving.[22][23] As part of this work, the original quarry from which the dolomite stone had originally been extracted was reopened in Abbots Leigh.[24]
| Preceding station | Historical railways | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Anne's Park | Great Western Railway To London via Box | Bedminster | ||
| Lawrence Hill | Great Western Railway To London via Badminton,To Cardiff and Pilning via Avonmouth | |||
| Brislington | Great Western Railway To Radstock | Terminus | ||
| Fishponds | Bristol and Gloucester Railway (later Midland Railway) | Terminus | ||
Closure of lines
Passenger traffic on the old North Somerset line ceased on 2 November 1959 and many more closures followed after the publication of Dr Beeching's The Reshaping of British Railways in 1963. The connection to the Bristol Harbour Railway was closed on 6 January 1964; passenger trains to Portishead were withdrawn on 7 September 1964; and most local services in the north of the city were withdrawn on 23 November 1964. The following year saw local services on the Midland route to Gloucester withdrawn[25] and the Midland route to Bath Green Park via Mangotsfield was closed on 7 March 1966. St Anne's Park and Saltford on the line towards Bath survived until 5 January 1970.[25]
On 12 September 1965 the terminal platforms were closed. This allowed the platforms to be renumbered with the order reversed (see list below).[14] The redundant train shed became a covered car park in February the following year, but from 1989 until 1999 the original (Brunel) part was an interactive science centre known as The Exploratory and an exhibition space. From 2002 to 2008 it housed the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.[26] As of 2016 the shed, now known as the Passenger Shed, is a venue for events such as conferences and weddings.[27]
| Old | New | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 | |
| 2 | 13 | |
| 3 | 12 | West end |
| 4 | 11 | East end |
| 5 | 9 & 10 | East and west ends numbered differently |
| 6 | 7 & 8 | East and west ends numbered differently |
| 7 | 5 | East end in the main train shed |
| 8 | 6 | West end beyond (new ) platform 5 |
| 9 | 3 | East end in the main train shed |
| 10 | 4 | West end beyond (new) platform 3 |
| 11 | 2 | West end bay |
| 12 | 1 | East end of arrival platform |
| 13 | Closed | West end of arrival platform |
| 14 | Closed | East end of departure platform |
| 15 | Closed | West end of departure platform |
Bristol Temple Meads | |||||||||||||||
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Simplified platform diagram | |||||||||||||||
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