Strolling Round Town This Morning. Story To Follow.
This rusting tin box was one of the £5000 Cycle Way Route 51 through Winslow. Others included a rotting piece of wood resembling a fence post. I was the only member of Winslow Town Council ,as Planning Chairman, in the 1990s opposing this pseudo artistic rubbish when the ‘artist’ came to our meeting asking for rate payer funding. R J CookApproach to Winslow’s long gone original 1851 Winslow Railway Station , the historic Cappadocian Maple Tree in the foreground..The old Station Inn, right, was very busy during the two World Wars.Remnant of Winslow’s old Station Road dairy which became a waste paper recycling depot in the 1950s.The Miller’s House in Buckingham Road. The big millhouse was connected at the back, where a small housing estate was built when the Tory Party who still use the house as HQ , sold the land for party funds.Great Horwood Road and A413 Road junction. More new hosuing is on the way in Bridge Field. A new road entry is under construction with another 120 homes on the plans.Winslow’s new station under construction.I caught this image of stylish English gent and his vintage car, with his permission, as I crossed the road,while he was halted by the Great Horwood Road traffic lights.East West Track laying viewed from Furze Lane Bridge 19.Winslow Cemetry Gates were made by the late motor engineer and blacksmith Joey Elms of Great Horwood.The new overbridge , replacing the elegant old Iron Bridge that connected two fields, has attracted the graffiti artists from the new housing estate.A pocket of wilderness near the old Winslow Secondary School.Entrance to the old Winslow Secondary school and youth club site, now cleared in preparation for a luxury old age pensioner retirement development.Winslow’s Health Centre improvements under way as belated expansion struggles to keep up with profit motivated housing development.A glimpse of Winslow’s 1959 fire station and a recruitment drive banner. The now redundant GPO automatic telephone exchange is just over the dividing wall.There was outrage when a Parish Church Council of mainly newcomers decided to rip up headstones to nake ground maintenance cheaper , and use them as paving. This stone marks some of R J Cook’s ancestors who were prominent local builders.Winslow Hall , built for ‘Ways and Means Lowndes, from locally made bricks, completed in 1701.
Explore Manufacturing moving concrete precast sections on to the track bed at Winslow’s new railway station today..
March 19th 2022
The low loader truck from which the trailer and a massive tractor became detached from the unit , careering on into the ditch at the notorious Adstock Bridge on the A413. Luckily there were no pedestrians in the area at the time. a regular passenger at the nearby bus stop . He said ‘One morning I came out on my way to work and there was an articulated milk tanker on its side, right where I would have been waiting.’ R J Cook’s son, walking back from Buckingham to Winslow, narrowly missed the tractor crashing down and wrecking the pavement, such was the combination of speed and weight crushing down, ass seen in the following photo.R J Cook approaching severely damaged pavement near Adstock Bridge, the day after a low loader shed its load of a massive tractor. The tractor was thrown into the ditch, requiring two large tow trucks to recover it and put it back on the truck. The area was doused in anti inflammable powder to soak up the fuel spillage. It is believed that the low loader had to brake sharply to avoid an oncoming car at this accident black spot where the speed limit is still 60 mph – trucks are restricted to 50 mph.. Motorcyclists have nicknamed this road, the A413, ‘The Death Run.’One of the two heavy wrecking trucks used to recover the tractor from the ditch at Adstock. This is a U.S made vehicle. The other one was a MAN.X60 buses from Milton Keynes were diverted via Coombes, the A421 and Great Horwood. A further diversion was necessary to avoid another section of the A413 because of another car crash at Hogsten turn. The bus had to take the Granborough, North Marston and Oving route, severely delaying services in both directions. R J Cook was on the first diverted bus.A large cavalcade of motorcycles entered Winslow town at mid day on Friday March 19th, an assortment of thundering machines , colourful, various vintages and eccentrically dressed riders. Motorcycle Cavalcade entering Winslow on March 19th 2022 just afternoon. Image Appledene Photographics / RJC.Young biker R J Cook , September 1979. R J Cook said ” I made a big mistake selling that bike , but was afraid my young son would want to be a biker like me.”
March 16th 2022
Engineering the old Oxford – Cambridge East West Railway Line At Winslow, Bucks.
A local man gazes in wonder at the sign displaying an artistic impression of what the new Winslow Railway Station will look like when the line reopens in 2025.An 18 ton tipper truck reverses between Furze Lane Railway Bridge and Buckingham Road to deliver some of the thousands of tons of granite chippings needed for every mile of the new track bed. March 14th 2022- Image R J Cook, Appledene Photographics..A hive of activity on constructing the new Winslow Station, looking west from Winslow’s Buckingham Road Bridge. The line is due for reopening in 2025. The original line between Bletchley and Oxford opened in 1851 at a cost of £1.5 million. It was foolishly closed to passengers in 1967, by the incompetent Labour Transport Minister Barbara Castle. The line’s original engineer Robert Stephenson quit because the clay soil was difficult and subject to land slippage. Even with modern equipment , the Claydon ground still proved difficult. Image by R J Cook / Appledene Photo graphics March 14th 2022. RJ Cook and K C Close are producing a new book on the rise, fall and rise of this line.It is due in shops in 2024. Cook was a senior council member campaigning for reopening the line in the early 1980w, with exclusive material on the project and specialist knowledge having been involved with equipping railways in Chile. Cook has considerable knowledge of this railway and engineering involved..
March 8th 2022
Swallows returning to England over Redfield, Winslow. MARCH 11TH 2022.
