Highworth monthly livestock market was for centuries the biggest one for miles around.

It was mooted in 1832 that this market town could be linked with Gloucester, London and Birmingham. That would have been one in the eye for Swindon.

If it had happened, the Swindon of today might have found itself the rural town to a very large and prosperous Highworth.

History is at times cruel, Swindon burgeoned in Victorian times and Highworth only found itself with a rail link in the latter part of the Victorian age.

Unfortunately, even then it only managed to secure a pocket-sized version of a railway to serve its modest needs.

It was designed, engineered and built down to a price.

This short-sighted desperation killed the dream almost before it began.

The people of Highworth and other local dignitaries managed to raise more than £8,000 and secure a loan of a similar size to build a five-mile long single-track railway.

This was a gamble as a modest light railway would still cost £4,000 a mile.

However, with this amount of money they could barely afford a light railway.

The Swindon and Highworth light railway company was formed. It, unlike the MSWJR, was well received by the GWR.

Being the only branch line from Swindon, construction of the junction from the GWR mainline for Highworth happened almost overnight without any acrimony.

A light railway is just what it says on the tin, it is constructed to carry less weight and uses smaller locos, allowing the trackbed and other building works to be less substantial than on a standard railway.

This can best be seen if you walk the route today as it follows the contours of the landscape to Highworth rather than imposing itself upon the countryside.

Work was completed over budget, with costs escalating nearer to £20,000.

As with all well intentioned budget priced products, skimping on quality has hidden costs and, on final inspection, the railway was found to be riddled with defects and was condemned.

Carrying out the work to rectify all its defects would cost many more thousands of pounds and the Swindon and Highworth Railway Shareholders did not have any money left.

They sold out to the GWR at a depressed price having never run the railway.

The GWR spent almost £20,000 relaying the railway, but to the GWR this was a minor task that hardly taxed its expertise and it continued spending money on the line.

The final cost was somewhere nearer to £78,000 or £14,000 a mile; which, even in those days, was a bargain.

The GWR had spent its money wisely adding various passing loops and buildings to improve the railway and its four stations at Stratton, Stanton, Hannington and Highworth and that included building two sidings at all but one of them.

I will cover some of these interesting locations in my next article.