Bearley (BER)

Bearley is a stop (one of two stations on the line, the other is Claverdon) on the branch line between Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon. Bearley was once a much larger junction station but is now a simple single platform unmanned halt.

Information
Type:	National Rail (Leamington Spa - Stratford-upon-Avon Line)
Station code:	BER
Opened:	1860
Platforms:	1

The station was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1860 on a single track branch. A line to Alcester was added in 1876 [1], with Bearley being the junction of the two lines, some services along the Alcester branch starting and terminating at Bearley. Unusually for a GWR station a bay platform was not added for the branch [2]. The Alcester branch was closed in 1951.

The station also had a cattle pen and siding behind the station building and a signalbox, both were gone by the end of the 1960s [3]. Bearley now has just a bus shelter but prior to 1965 had quite a substantial stone station building.

The Leamington Spa-Stratford-upon-Avon line was doubled in 1939 (it was doubled South of Bearley in 1907 as far as Wilmcote). and a second platform added with a footbridge between the platforms. However the line was singled again in 1969.

The station is now an unmanned halt managed by West Midlands Trains though most services to the station are by Chiltern Railways.

Looking up towards Leamington Spa

The former second platform can be seen in the background

Station entrance

Edstone Aqueduct
A few hundred metres away from Bearley station is the Edstone Aqueduct, one of three on the Southern stretch of the Stratford-upon-Avon canal. It is the longest of the three being one hundred and forty five metres long. As well as a road it crosses the main Birmingham to Stratford-upon-Avon railway line. The canal (and the aqueduct) became the property of the Great Western Railway  in 1863. Water from the canal was used to top-up GWR locomotives from the aqueduct via a valve, originally a filter also being in place to stop fish getting into the locomotive water tank!

Edstone aqueduct

[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Stratford-upon-Avon to Birmingham (Moor Street) (Middleton Press, 2006) Map. IV
[2] Colin G. Maggs, The Branch Lines of Warwickshire (Amberley, 2011) p.156
[3] Mitchell & Smith. Fig. 11