OS Explorer map 129, Yeovil & Sherborne: Somerton & Wincanton – I do not own this map, but had visited it before starting this blog. Visited again for this post 18th September 2022.
Google Maps location link: Yetminster
I visited this map area as part of my All Line Rover trip in September 2022, for which I did day-by-day blog posts already, and am now going through doing my regular posts about the new map areas I visited. The main content below will therefore be just a lightly edited version of relevant parts from my posts aboutDay 2 and Day 3 of the trip; for a more connected narrative I recommend taking a look there instead. The Previous Visits section will be new though.
I arrived in this map area at the end of the second full day of my All Line Rover trip, on a train up the Heart of Wessex Line from Weymouth, getting off at Yetminster station –which is a request stop, so I made sure to let the guard know I wanted to get off there. I’ve got off a train at a request stop once before, at Kinbrace a few of years ago, but had never before flagged one down to get on it, so that delight awaited tomorrow!
Getting off the train, I walked through the village in the low afternoon sun to my B&B for the night, which was on an outlying farm. There, the owner welcomed me, and when I said I’d probably be leaving too early for breakfast, kindly offered that it’d be no problem to cook me breakfast at 6:30am – it being a farm, they’re up early anyway. I went up to my room, and had a relaxed evening, putting together the somewhat odd dinner that was the best I could assemble from the shops open late on a Sunday in Weymouth, and getting to bed early for my early start the next day!
The next morning, I had an early start, coming down at 6:30am for the breakfast my hosts had very kindly agreed to give me, even though it’s earlier than they usually offer. The reason for this was that the Heart of Wessex Line has only two-hourly trains, so I wanted to aim for the 0720 up to Bristol, as I had a long day of travelling planned that would go rather later into the evening than I wanted if I left it another two hours.
Leaving the B&B, I saw a lovely sunrise over the Dorset countryside during the ten-minute walk to the station – while I’d arrived into Yetminster station the night before, I’d decided to head off from Thornford one stop up the line, as it was pretty much equally close.
Thornford is a tiny station, used by about 10 people a day on average, and quite pretty, with the continuing sunrise visible under the stone road bridge. Like Yetminster, it’s a request stop, and so I got to enjoy my first ever experience of flagging down a train! I’m glad to report that the train stopped as intended. My train whisked me off towards Bristol, after which I had a busy day in Birmingham and Merseyside before ending up in Manchester!
Previous visits
I have, I think, visited this map area once before, when my parents brought me to the wedding of the son one of Father Dearest’s friends in August 2008. I’m not entirely confident of where it was, but my vague memory is that it was somewhere near Yeovil, which is in this map area.
The main memory I have of this wedding is that I was bought my first suit to wear to it! I also have a great many photos of people I don’t know, so I assume that was the main way my thirteen-year-old self had to amuse himself at the event!
Visiting all the maps! 