Clifton Bridge railway station is a former railway station in the Bower Ashton district of Bristol, England, near the River Avon. It was opened in 1867 by the Bristol and Portishead Pier and Railway Company as a single platform stop along the line from Bristol to Portishead. It was later taken over by the Great Western Railway and had a second platform added.
Passenger services at the station declined following the Second World War, and the Beeching Report recommended the complete closure of the Portishead line. Passenger services at Clifton Bridge ended on 7 September 1964, with goods services following on 5 July 1965, although the line saw occasional traffic until 1981. Most of the station was demolished, leaving some remains of the platforms, a retaining wall and the footbridge. Regular freight trains through the station began to run again in 2002 when Royal Portbury Dock was connected to the rail network. The line is due to be reopened to passenger traffic as part of MetroWest, but there are no plans to reopen the station.
History
Clifton Bridge railway station was opened on 18 April 1867 by the Bristol and Portishead Pier and Railway Company, when services began on their line from the Bristol and Exeter Railway at Portishead Junction to a pier on the Severn Estuary at . The line was built as broad-gauge, and was largely single track. The station was sited in Bower Ashton at the southern end of the Avon Gorge, at the bottom of Rownham Hill and near the western bank of the river. The station, which took its name from the nearby Clifton Suspension Bridge, was from the line's terminus at Portishead, from and from the Great Western Railway's terminus at . To the north, the railway ran along the riverbank in the gorge, and to the south through fields just outside the Bristol conurbation. The station was initially the first along the line from Portishead Junction, before .
When it opened, the station had a single platform, on the west side of the track. Road access was through a large forecourt to the west from Clanage Road / Rownham Hill, now the A369. There was a two-storey building facing the road, the ground floor of which had a single long room, partitioned into a waiting room, booking office and station master's office. The ground floor also housed a coal-fired boiler and washing facilities, while upstairs was spacious living accommodation accessed by a private staircase. A single north-facing bay platform for goods vans was at the north end of the station. The station was noted as having an excellent garden alongside the platform. The nearby Rownham Ferry allowed passengers to cross the river to Hotwells and Clifton. Services on the Portishead railway were operated by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, with six trains per day in each direction on weekdays and one on Sundays. The operation of these transferred to the Great Western in 1876, when they took over the Bristol and Exeter, and in 1884 the Great Western took ownership of the Bristol and Portishead. The station was visited by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1878.
The station saw major works at the beginning of the 1880s. From 24 to 27 January 1880, the line was relaid as standard gauge, and on 15 September 1880 a passing loop was brought into use through the station, east of the original track, with a new platform serving it. The new platform had a large shelter and a small signal cabin immediately south of the shelter, with a footbridge at the south end linking it to the original platform. Both platforms had "half barrel" canopies added. The new "down" platform served trains towards Bristol, while the original "up" platform now served trains towards Portishead. The double track through the station was extended to Portishead Junction from 1883. The station's name was changed to Rownham in March 1891, but reverted to Clifton Bridge in 1910. In 1899 the station was flooded to a depth of several feet (one metre), as were other parts of Bristol. A new signal box with 27 levers was built at the south end of the western platform, with the original cabin taken out of use from 25 August 1907. The signal box contained three token instruments, connected to the line's other signal boxes at Oakwood, and Portishead, so that the Pill or Oakwood boxes could be switched out. The boxes at Clifton Bridge and Portishead were staffed 24 hours a day. By 1889, services had increased to nine trains in each direction on weekdays and one on Sundays, and from 1909 this increased to 13 on weekdays and two on Sundays.