A collection of signs pointing to stations where there are no longer any trains.
Most of Devon’s cast iron direction posts were torn out in the late 1970s and replaced with wooden ones carrying aluminium fingers. Fortunately, Somerset and Cornwall county councils were not so philistine, resulting in iron or wooden fingers pointing to long forgotten places.
Bury and Watchet are on a finger pointing towards the camera.
Of the eight places seen here, seven had, or have, stations. Six are closed, but there is still Exeter, 25 miles away, or Sampford Peverell (Tiverton Parkway), at 18 miles.
With its letters no longer picked out in black, this one points to Draycott, between Cheddar and Wells (Yatton and Witham).
Halwill Town could have been another station name.
The scout had ridden past this post in 2023 but it was Tony Hill who spotted it. One of the fingers directs those looking for South Molton Road Station to the turnpike, via James’s Week Lane.
South Molton Road Station opened in 1854. South Molton Station on the Devon & Somerset line opened in 1873 but the earlier station kept its name until British Railways changed it to King’s Nympton in 1951. The sighting is included here for interest, not because the station is disused.