A few weeks ago, with a spare sunny Sunday afternoon I decided to go and visit a long-abandoned train station positioned halfway between Axminster and Honiton. The station, near Shute is known as Seaton Junction and used to carry passengers along a line through Colyton, Colfyord and Seaton. To get a full view of the platform from the train, you can get on at Axminster (towards Exeter) and look out the right hand side windows a few minutes after the train leaves. As a frequent passenger on this train, I’ve seen this station countless times and have always been intrigued by its history.
I drove to the station from the direction of Whitford- a quant village near Musbury and continued up and past Lyme Bay Winery to a ridge. As you come over the ridge and down the other side you are presented by the main station on the left with a big concourse in front. I parked the car there and walked around with my girlfriend, slowly exploring the buildings and footbridge.
The main station building looks very similar to Axminster and Crewkerne station and I can only guess it was built and designed by the same architect. Theres an adjoining building to the main station which was a former engineering building. I was able to peer through the windows but it was completely derelict.
Most parts of the original brick walls are extremely well built- the mortar is tightly knit and the stonework around the windows are really nice to look at.
Just around to the side, there’s a small ramp leading to a metal gate. The station main entrance has 3 steps up so this way was probably for bikes and luggage. I assume this side gate was for letting people out of the train, like the one in Axminster. The wall above the gate looks like it’s taken a canon ball- not sure what could have caused that!
To the right here, is where an old factory sits- an engineering one according to this post https://www.facebook.com/groups/1730959503584733/posts/31232309793022980/
On the opposite side at the front, a traditional railway concrete wall fences off the edge of a grassy area which has seen some recent tidying up from gardeners.
As you can see here, the state of the bricks and stone are damaged from the weather. The bricks have a lot of spalling probably from a broken gutter and missing drainpipes. It looks like this area has been painted, possibly trapping moisture.
The steps leading up to the station entrance are exactly like those seen in Lyme at near Bell cliff.
Factory building
This was more modern in style, not sure when it was added but has nice Crittall windows. The small black window to the bottom left was probably a toilet. I like the shape of this building, it’s quite Art Deco in style with satisfying geometry.
Exploring the footbridge
This concrete structure still felt really solid despite the cracks and ivy.
The view below is from a few steps up, looking back towards another impressive brick building, which looked like a farm house.
A view of the factory building with an Axminster Carpets lorry and an old car. Notice the skylights on the roof near the chimney, or is that lead? Hard to tell.
Also, behind the Axminster Carpets van above, towards the right you can just see a really old stone wall with a short bit of roof on it. Similarly, the wall to the right of the van (facing us) looks like it has old concrete render on it which has chipped off (just above the C of carpets), and you can make out a kind of brick arch where it’s fallen off.
Below, is looking towards the direction of Honiton tunnel. I could just make out an old platform below the felled trees. This was underneath the footbridge and you couldn’t get down to it.
