Crewkerne, Highbridge, Norton Fitzwarren

It's nice to get postcards with nice postmarks and pictures of the place that the postmark comes from - here is one from Crewkerne showing Station Road ...

here is one from Highbridge ...

... and one from Norton Fitzwarren.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the British Army were in desperate need of modern logistics facilities, positioned with easy access to the major port and transport facilities, yet away from the major Nazi-Luftwaffe targets.

Norton Fitzwarren is on the former Bristol and Exeter Railway mainline, which was operated and then taken over by the GWR in 1890. The station became an important junction station, with access within an hour to:

• North: Bristol, Cardiff and Gloucester, then onwards to the industrial Midlands
• South: Exeter, and hence to HMNB Devonport
• East: Yeovil and the LSWR mainline, onwards to all of the major south coast ports, including Portsmouth and Southampton
• West: branch lines to Minehead and Barnstaple

Resultantly, the station for a relatively small village was quite extensive, having two island platforms creating four platforms. Thanks also to the extensive local silk mills, there were also extensive existing freight handling facilities within the Fairwater Yard, a large regional freight yard located south of the mainline.