STUART JORDAN explores the origins of this important station in Bristol.
The railway first came to Bristol in 1840. Temple Meads was the western terminus of the Great Western Railway, with originated at London Paddington. It was the first station designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the site chosen was adjacent to Temple Church and the water meadows of the Avon, which is the origin of the name given to the station. The station was designed for Brunel’s broad gauge, the 7ft 1/4in gauge that the GWR was built to.
An engraving of the inside of Brunel's original station at Bristol.
Temple Meads was built on a viaduct to raise it above the river and water meadows. A 200ft long shed covered the station, which also enclosed the engine shed. A Tudor-style office building completed the station complex. Services to Bath would start in 1840, with services to Paddington coming the year after once Box Tunnel was completed.
1910s map of the pre-Grouping lines around Bristol.
GWR was not the only line to use Temple Meads. Three other railways, also designed by Brunel, terminated there – Bristol and Exeter Railway (1841), Bristol and Gloucester Railway (1844), and Bristol and South Wales Union Railway (1863). All these railways would eventually be amalgamated into the GWR.
The station area soon expanded, with the B&ER building their own station in 1845 to the south of Brunel’s Temple Meads. By 1850 an engine shed was operating on the south bank of the Avon, building engines for the various lines which used the station. To the north of the station a goods shed was built to allow transhipment of goods from the railway to barges on the river. This shed was also connected to the harbour by the Bristol Harbour Railway, which ran through a tunnel under St Mary Redcliffe Churchyard.
Although the Midland Railway (who now ran the Bristol and Gloucester line) had dual-gauged their track in 1854, the GWR was still sticking to Broad Gauge. Transhipment between lines of different gauges was necessary and with the ‘Gauge Wars’ looking to be won by Standard Gauge the line to London was converted to dual-gauge by 1875. The line south-west to Taunton and Exeter was not fully converted until 1892. With the extra space gained, two extra platforms were added to Temple Meads.
The new 1870s building, with the original wooden spire.
Increased traffic meant that Brunel’s original station couldn’t cope. In the 1870s a plan was devised to extend the station with platform lengths increased and a new through-station with three platforms built to the south of Brunel’s station, plus a new carriage shed on the site of the B&ER station.
Rebuilding work continued into the 20th Century, with the goods depot being rebuilt in 1924. The through platforms were rebuilt in the 1930s with five new platforms added and the signal boxes converted from mechanical to powered. The wooden spire of the new station was destroyed in WW2 by bombing.
LMS Compound 4P and Diesel Railcar, on platforms 13 and 15 respectively, in the original terminus in 1958.
By 1965 the old part of the station was no longer in use, with access to it blocked by the building of a large signal box by platform 14 in 1970. The platforms were renumbered to reflect this change.
Google Maps image of Bristol Temple Meads, showing the Brunel station (outlined in red), the current station (outlined in blue), and the B7&ER headquarters building (outlined in green).
Today, the station is served by (the reborn) Great Western Railway services to London Paddington, Cardiff, and the West Country, CrossCountry services through to Penzance and north to Birmingham Manchester, Leeds, and Scotland, and South Western Railway trains to London Waterloo.
Inside the current station.