
© OpenStreetMap contributors | OpenStreetMap copyright notice | View context map of proposed location


Original map published by Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence. Reopen is a nonprofit venture and is not affiliated with FoSBR.
My Uncle Arch Gillman was the stationmaster of Uphill for years. My father lived with my Uncle and his Gran from the age of six in the station house! This was around 1935 and onwards until the early 60s. My uncle continued to live there in a mobile caravan in the paddock after the station closed!
My dad married my mum in 1956 and they had myself and two brothers. We lived in Bristol. Growing up years we regularly used to catch the train from Parson Street to Uphill for weekends and holidays in the station house. The sound of the steam trains used to rattle the windows as they passed! The smell and the coal smuts upon your face! Clambering across the railway lines to collect conkers. Sitting in the outside toilet on a cold winters night with the Izal toilet paper and the bitter draughts from the wind and the rain and the snow and the loud rumble of the next train due. The sound of the stationmaster (Uncle Arch) closing the train doors and the whistle as the train departs! So many happy memories. I have many. I remember Uncle Arch’s neighbours the Smallmans buying the bungalow next door and the start of the museum!
Oh! Those beautiful times will always be in my memory box as a small piece of Heaven. How I miss those days. How as clear as day I remember the hares coursing through the fields alongside the house from the side window, curled up reading a book! The smell of Uncle’s roast and the carbolic soap on the wooden draining board! We had a Harry Potter time of our own! In dear memories of my Mum and Dad and our childhood growing up.
To have Uphill reopen would be such a wonderful addition! The fact these stations ever closed was a travesty! Bring them back!
Jayne Metcalf
Further reading
Disused railway stations on the Bristol to Exeter line – Wikipedia