A Full Diary (For Old Crocks)
Easter is a busy time for committed Christians, and the fbbs, despite being old, have had plenty to do with more on the way during Easter Week.
Monday 14th : Church Prayer Meeting
Tuesday 15th : Church Fellowship Lunch
Friday 18th : Good Friday Service
Saturday 19th : Easter Event for Young People
Sunday 20th : Resurrection Day Service
Monday 21st : Church Prayer Meeting
Wednesday 23rd : Missionary Evening
The fbbs have commitments, some small and some large, at all these diary items and their May Fellowship Meetings are looming, with the monthly leaflets due to be distributed at the end if this week.
Blogging may need to be curtailed as, whilst the spirit is willing, the flesh is getting weaker.
So a bit of a bodge for blogs this week, some mini, some midi but not many maxi!
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The Sport Of Kings (Part 1)
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The Isle of Wight is not usually associated with horse racing. The celebrated noise-fest, a k a The Isle of Wight Festival does have one of its car parks on "Racecourse" Road ...
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... which is at Binfield on the main road between Newport and Ryde.
Southern Vectis bus 9 will take you there ...
... more specifically half the 9s - the other half of the frequency runs via Staplers. (It's "Stap" (to rhyme with Snap "lers", by the way, not the device for clipping sheets of paper together).
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There is very little about this "Racecourse" on-line, but plenty about another one as illustrated at the top of this post.
To get there you would need route 37 from Ryde ...
... and alight a few stops after Haylands School.
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... and there it is. Then there is a very sharp right hand turn for the 37 ....jpg)
... followed by a blind corner not wide enough for two vehicles. And the 37 is usually double deck!
Anyway, having alighted from your 37 before the scary bit, you walk straight ahead where the bus turns tight and you are on Gatehouse Road..jpg)
Keep bravely on and you come to a junction where the well kempt road turns left. But you keep straight on down Station Road..jpg)
The surface deteriorates and looks less and less inviting ...
... but if your exploratory resolve is strong, you come to a set of gates on a railway line..jpg)
You have arrived at Ashey Station. You have not passed anywhere that might be Ashey which is not surprising as Ashey Station is not at Ashey.
The enquiring mind might wonder why the Isle of Wight Central Railway built a station in the middle of nowhere ....jpg)
... but it is one of three that filled the company's carriages with very few passengers! The current preserved Steam Railway runs from Smallbrook Junction (due south of Ryde) to Wootton (map above, centre).
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The best explanation of why the station existed and serves nobody, is that it was a speculative build on the promise of some housing development that never developed.
But here it was, complete with passing loop, as portrayed in this delightful painting commissioned by the Steam Railway.
But it doesn't look quite like that today ...
... as we shall see in tomorrow's blog.
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The Easter Jigsaw
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There had been an urgency to remove the bodies before the Sabbath, which started at sunset on the Friday.
Dead bodies were "unclean" and simply unacceptable while the festival was in progress. The final anointing with spices would have to wait until after the Sabbath.
Mark, the first to write a "Gospel", takes up the story.
Very early on Sunday morning, at sunrise, the women went to the tomb. On the way they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (It was a very large stone.) Then they looked up and saw that the stone had already been rolled back. So they entered the tomb, where they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe - and they were alarmed..jpg)
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“Don't be alarmed,” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here - he has been raised! Look, here is the place where he was placed. Now go and give this message to his disciples, including Peter: ‘He is going to Galilee ahead of you; there you will see him, just as he told you.’”
So they went out and ran from the tomb, distressed and terrified.
So no great elation because Jesus was risen, just distress and terror.
But it seems that one of the women hung around ...
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Next New Station blog : Tues 22nd April
There are another three reasons for the existence of Ashey Station.
ReplyDelete1 - The station was named 'Ashey for Nunwell' when first opened. Nunwell was the home of the Oglander family, probably the richest and oldest island landowners. and although Brading is nearer to Nunwell Ashey would have been quieter.
2 - The chairman of the line, George Young
lived at West Ashey farm.
3 - When first opened Ashey was the only crossing point between Whippingham and Ryde, St. Johns. So the stationmaster (who probably also ran Haven Street) had a station house and so the station building was larger than some others on the line.
My school had a field trip to the island in 1969 and we walked the old tramway, through the tunnel and then climbed the chalk pit face. Old chalk ballast still on the groundbut no sign of racecourse station which was probly only wood. the racecouse was diverted in edwardian times and a new coaching stock stabling point moved to a new siding to the south of the Newport platform. This is where the coaching stock in use as grandstands was then stabled. The Isle of Wight Central Railway history book by Maycock and Silsbury (Oakwood Press 2001) quotes the dates for the racecourse station as 1884 to 1929.