page_title: Watchet
section_title: Transport
hierarchical_section_title: Watchet / Transport
caption_attribution_description: Unrebuilt West Country Class 'Wadebridge' arrives at Watchet. Although hard to see it was raining quite hard.
context_page_description: Watchet is a harbour town, civil parish and electoral ward in the English county of Somerset, with a population of 3,785. It is situated 15 miles west of Bridgwater, 15 miles north-west of Taunton, and 9 miles east of Minehead. The town lies at the mouth of the Washford River on Bridgwater Bay, part of the Bristol Channel, and on the edge of Exmoor National Park.
  The original settlement may have been at the Iron Age fort Daw's Castle. It then moved to the mouth of the river and a small harbour developed, named by the celts as Gwo Coed meaning "under the wood". After the Saxon conquest of the area the town developed, becoming known as Weced or Waeced, and was attacked by Vikings in the 10th century. Trade using the harbour gradually grew, despite damage during several severe storms, with import and exports of goods including those from Wansbrough Paper Mill until the 19th century when it increased with the export of iron ore, brought from the Brendon Hills via the West Somerset Mineral Railway, mainly to Newport for onward transportation to the Ebbw Vale Steelworks.
context_section_description: Adjacent to the harbour is Watchet station. This is now an intermediate stop on the West Somerset Railway, a largely steam-operated heritage railway that links Bishops Lydeard, near Taunton, with Minehead. The station was first opened on 31 March 1862, when the West Somerset Railway was opened from Norton Junction. The station was built as a terminus, for part of the commercial aim of the WSR was to provide a wider and cheaper distribution route for goods from the then major port of Watchet. The line was extended westwards by the Minehead Railway Company on 16 July 1874, with an industrial railway siding provided at the same time into the Wansbrough Paper Mill. The GWR undertook many projects to increase the capacity of the line in the 1930s. Nationalisation in 1948 saw the GWR become the Western Region of British Railways. Freight traffic was withdrawn on 6 July 1964, and passenger trains on 4 January 1971. The station was reopened by the new West Somerset Railway on 28 August 1976.
  The harbour was also linked, with a separate station, to the independent West Somerset Mineral Railway, that ran to iron ore mines in the Brendon Hills south west of the town. From Watchet  the ore was carried across the Bristol Channel by ship to Newport and thence to Ebbw Vale for smelting to extract the iron. The line was ready for traffic from Watchet to Roadwater by April 1857, Although the outward terminal of the line was to be the quay at Watchet, the pier had been practically unusable for some considerable time, and boats were beached and loaded direct from carts brought on to the foreshore. After considerable public pressure, the Watchet Harbour Act was passed in 1857, placing it under the control of Commissioners; they built a new east pier and rebuilt the west pier; the work was finished in 1862, and 500 ton vessels could enter the harbour. Passenger services were also provided from Watchet, however these werre not financially successful and with the declining output from the Iron ore mines the line closed in 1898. It briefly reopened in the early 20th century.
  The trackbed of the old West Somerset Mineral Railway now forms a path, which can be followed from the harbour at Watchet to Washford station, also on the West Somerset Railway.
caption: No.34007 Wadebridge, a former-SR West Country class 4-6-2 Pacific, arrives into Watchet railway station from Minehead, heading a passenger train on the heritage West Somerset Railway
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