Woody Bay railway station

An early view of Woody Bay station

The platform viewed in 1996, the signal box is being restored

Detail of the station building, 1996. The trackbed was, at the time, not owned by the railway.

Woody Bay was a station on the old Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, a narrow gauge railway line that ran through Exmoor from Barnstaple to Lynton and Lynmouth in North Devon. The station was inland, about 2 km from Woody Bay itself. It opened with the line (as Wooda Bay until the name was changed in 1901) on 7 March 1898, and closed when the line was closed on 29 September 1935. From 1923 until closure, the line was part of the Southern Railway.

Woody Bay station was built in part to serve the expected development of a resort at Woody Bay, a mile or so to the north. A pier was built in the bay, although not much more building took place, and the pier was destroyed by storms before it properly opened. The development was stopped when the promotor went bankrupt in 1900, and although a route was surveyed for a branch line to the bay, it was never built.

After being bought by the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Company in 1995, restoration of the station began, and it opened as a Visitors' Centre in 2003. An "out and back" service over a few hundred yards of track began in 2004, and with the opening of a temporary station at Killington Lane, about one mile towards Parracombe Halt, a regular "point to point" service started in 2006.

A carriage shed has been built into a cutting beyond the station. It is a temporary structure erected in 2003, and can be moved when the line expands.

The L&B Route Then and Now

Legend 1898        1935        Today 19,23 Lynton 17,35 Caffyns Halt 15,77 Woody Bay Killington Lane 14,33 Parracombe Halt National Park boundary 11,62 Blackmoor Gate Wistlandpound Reservoir 7,54 Bratton Fleming 4,54 Chelfham 4,49 Chelfham Viaduct 2,54 Snapper Halt 0,28 Pilton Pilton Causeway Crossing Braunton Road Crossing L&SWR Exchange siding 0,0 Barnstaple Town 212,20 from Waterloo (Distances from Barnstaple in miles, chains)

Woody Bay station is at: grid reference SS68254641