ADLESTROP

Adlestrop Station lay on the Oxford-Worcester line, known when it was built as the 'Old, Worse and Worse'. The line is still open, although the station itself is shut. The station sign now hangs in the bus shelter on the village green.

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Yes. I remember Adlestrop

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Some one cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and around him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

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