As part of celebrations on 15 June 2019 to mark the 175th anniversary of the Didcot to Oxford railway line, an information board commissioned by Radley History Club was unveiled at Radley Station by Christopher Parker of the Greening Lamborn Trust (the major donor towards the cost of the board). An illustrated timeline drawn from the Radley History Club book, Radley People & the Railway, outlined the history of the railway at Radley and its station. Details of the day’s celebrations

Sadly the information board was removed by an unknown hand sometime over the summer of 2024 and never seen again. Below is the timeline and a selection of photographs from the Radley History Club Archive.

Timeline of Radley Station

1844 The Great Western Railway’s line from Didcot to Oxford opens. Alas, there is no station for Radley.

1856 The branch line to Abingdon opens. Abingdon passengers change at Abingdon Junction. This consists of two bleak platforms nearly a mile south of Radley village. They are of very limited use to local inhabitants.
Timeline of the Abingdon Branch line

*The Abingdon Bunk waiting at Radley Station for the stopping train from Didcot or Oxford, 1950s*

*Radley Station in the 1950s with the Ganger’s Hut (formerly the Waiting Room at Abingdon Junction) in the background to the left*

1873 Radley at last gets a proper station. From now on, you change here for Abingdon. The Bowyer Arms is the only nearby building.

1875 There are dreams of 30 or more imposing residences on large plots close to the station. Only two were built.

1881 On 18 January, passengers are trapped for many hours on a train stuck in the snow 200 yards north of the station. Jackson’s Oxford Journal published a plucky account by a ‘young lady passenger’.

*Railway staff at Radley Station, c.1890. Charles Ambridge, Radley’s first station master*, *is on the right with Frank Stimpson, porter, beside him and John James Foster (packer or platelayer) at the back*

1899 Great Western Railway provides a fine house for the stationmaster. There are no other houses near the station until the 1930s.

*Radley station looking south before August 1913, showing the Abingdon platform*

*Radley Station looking north in 1919 (reproduced with permission from Oxfordshire* *County Council – Oxfordshire History Centre)*

*Locomotive No. 220 at Radley Station, with crew and railway workers (undated, but probably taken in the 1920s) (reproduced with permission from Oxfordshire* *County Council – Oxfordshire History Centre)*

In the 1960s, the vicar of Radley, the Reverend Robert (‘Robin’) Brutton, when his wife’s train was late arriving, would nip across to the Bowyer Arms to collect mugs of ale to share with the signalman. Against regulations, of course…

1986 The approach road to platform 2 is sold.