page_title: Wotton railway station (Brill Tramway)
section_title: Church Siding
hierarchical_section_title: Wotton railway station (Brill Tramway) / Structures and sidings / Church Siding
caption_attribution_description: English: Wotton House, Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England
context_page_description: Wotton railway station was a small station in Buckinghamshire, England, built by the Duke of Buckingham in 1871. Part of a private horse-drawn tramway designed to carry freight from and around his lands in Buckinghamshire, Wotton station was intended to serve the Duke's home at Wotton House and the nearby village of Wotton Underwood. In 1872 the line was extended to the nearby village of Brill, converted to passenger use, equipped with steam locomotives, and renamed the Brill Tramway. In the 1880s, it was proposed to extend the line to Oxford, but the operation of the line was instead taken over by London's Metropolitan Railway.
  Although situated in an unpopulated area, Wotton station was relatively well used. It saw the highest passenger numbers of any station on the line other than the terminus at Brill railway station and the junction with the main line to London at Quainton Road railway station, and it also carried large quantities of milk from the area's dairy farms. In 1906 the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway was opened, crossing the Brill Tramway at Wotton.
context_section_description: Slightly to the west of the station was a junction with a 1 mile 57 chain (1 mile 1,300 yards; 1.8 km) spur line known as Church Siding, which ran through Wotton Underwood to the hamlet of Kingswood. This spur line served two coal merchants, and never officially carried passengers; it was never upgraded to carry locomotives and remained worked by horses throughout its existence.  (The siting of the coal bay at Kingswood was controversial, as it was inconveniently sited and built on low ground prone to flooding. The Duke and the line's surveyor had disagreed on the best location for the depot; to resolve the matter the Duke had thrown his hat in the air and the coal bay was built where the hat landed.) The spur to Kingswood was abandoned in about 1915, although a short stub, running between the Brill Tramway and the Duke of Buckingham's home at Wotton House, remained open for occasional goods traffic until the line was closed.
caption: The Church Siding spur, west of Wotton station, served the Duke of Buckingham's home at Wotton House.
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