Welcome to Holton Heath
Railway Station
Holton Heath is an unmanned station
It lays on the shore of Poole Harbour and was a fishing and farming community. It had largely disappeared by 1911 and although farming continued for a few decades, it is now a closed nature reserve.
History of Holton Heath
- 1086 – First mention of Holton in the Doomsday Book
- 1841 – 28 inhabitants, two of the four householders were fishermen
- 1847 – The railway was built, it passed north of the cottages between the farmland and the heath.
- 1861 – The original cottages were were replaced with a farmhouse and a barn
- 1915 – Royal Naval Cordite Factory Opens
- 1957 – Cordite factory closes, the site becomes a Admiralty Materials Laboratory
- 1997 – The admiralty site at Holton Heath Closes
By the late 1800’s railwaymen were a component of Sandford’s population. Dairy farming was an element of local agriculture, the railway allowing freshmilk to be delivered to the rapidly expanding towns.
Pat Andrews, Sandford Heritage
The cordite factory built at Holton Heath in 1915 needed a workers’ station, sidings and signal box on the main line. It had 14 miles of its own standard narrow gauge railways, including a line to a pier on Poole Harbour opposite Rockley from which cordite was dispatched until 1938. The station became public in 1924, and until the 1950’s Sandford’s newspapers were sorted on its platform.
Pat Andrews, Sandford Heritage
Cordite was the propellant used during much of the 20th century to propel the shells fired by Navy’s guns.At the beginning of the First World War , the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, decided that the Royal Navy needed its own supply of cordite to give a highly reproducible product. Why Holton Heath was chosen as the site for this factory is unknown but it did have several assets. A road to the north and a main line railway to the south. It did not have a local water supply but this was remedied by using a series of artesian wells in the Corfe Mullen area and pumping water to a reservoir on Black Hill.
Bob Dukes, Sandford Heritage
Places of interest in and around Holton Heath
Farmer Palmer's Farm Park
Arne
The Sika Trail at Wareham Forest
Wareham Forset
