Route of Elsenham and Thaxted Light Railway (EHER 373)

The Elsenham and Thaxted Light Railway was authorised in 1906 and opened in 1913. Promoted by local interests to save Thaxted from further decline for lack of a railway, it was supported by both the Great Eastern Railway and the Treasury. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1952, the line closed in 1953, and the track was removed.

Elsenham and Thaxted Light Railway. Opened in 1913, closed 1953. Single track. <1>-<3> The Elsenham and Thaxted Light Railway opened in 1913, closing in entirety just 40 years later in 1953. It was, therefore, a very late development coming well after the major 19th century eras of railway construction and it also had an early end coming 10 years before the Beeching Report of 1963. Thaxted had been by-passed by both the construction of lines from London to the north during the ‘Railway Mania’ era of the 1840s, and also the branches running eastwards off the London Liverpool Street to Cambridge line built in the 1860s. Thaxted was the centre of an agricultural area with only a small amount of agriculture related industry and it suffered badly during the agricultural depression of the late 19th century, a situation not helped by the fact that it had no railway connection to use to get its produce to local and London markets. Possible salvation of this situation came with the passing of the Light Railways Act in 1896. This Act was a conscious attempt to alleviate distress by allowing light railways to be constructed in rural areas which were more lightly engineered and hence cheaper to build. Where it was certified to the Treasury by the Board of Agriculture that the making of a light railway would benefit agriculture in an area, the Treasury might agree to aid the railway construction out of public money. A number of local landowners and businessmen supported the construction of a narrow gauge line from Elsenham to Thaxted and beyond, but in the end a standard gauge line, which ended short of the town itself on the west side of the Chelmer valley, was built and opened in 1913. It was initially a success, but suffered competition for freight from road transport after WWI, although passenger figures held up for longer. The line was very busy during WWII, but both freight and passenger figures declined after the war. It was identified as un-remunerative in 1951 and closed to passengers in 1952 and to freight in the following year. This survey details all significant archaeological/structural elements associated with the branch line and comments upon extent, integrity, relative significance and condition of the surviving resource. However, as a result of the original minimal engineering of the line and the integration of it back into the landscape following closure very few original features survive – just parts of the track-bed, sites of road crossings, station and halt sites and buildings at Thaxted station. Today the branch line lays redundant and integrated back into the rural, agricultural landscape. Much of the track-bed has been reclaimed by landowners and is now part of their ploughed fields, except where it is used as farm tracks. Intermediate stations and halts have been removed and the sites are overgrown or are part of the agricultural land – considering their primitive nature of clinker and ash platforms and wooden buildings, often old coach bodies, their demise was inevitable. The only structures of significance to survive are at the two terminus stations and these enjoy no form of statutory protection and hence are at risk of future development. Although Elsenham station is on the operating line from London Liverpool Street to Cambridge and its future is therefore secure, it may be the subject of development proposals if the line is up-graded at a future date. This report makes recommendations relating to significant surviving structures the overarching message being that the features which do survive are significant in themselves and as the last remaining evidence of this former branch light railway and that all efforts should be made to conserves and retain them. In fact the Thaxted Branch was one of only three Light Railways to be built in Essex, the others being the Kelvedon, Tiptree and Tollesbury Pier Light Railway and the Corringham Light Railway. Any features of the Thaxted Branch surviving may, therefore, have greater significance due to the rarity of this type of railway in the County.<4> A large scale geophysical survey to the east of Elsenham detected the former route of the railway for a length of approximately 800m. <5>