Monday 13 August 2007

More Calstock Viaduct celebrations

Last week, Thursday to be more exact, I had blogged about taking part in a guided walk to celebrate the centenary of the viaduct at Calstock. On that Thursday evening there was what was described as "An audience with John Snell and John Newcombe". First up was John Newcombe who delivered a lecture on the building of the viaduct; I had heard this at least twice before but I am for ever fascinated with this piece of local history. At the time of the construction Calstock was fortunate to have a shop owner called Frederick Paul who happened to be fascinated by photography and who every couple of weeks would be out with his camera to record what was happening. John was able to utilise a selection of these photographs to illustrate his lecture. After an interval it was over to John Snell who, in his usual relaxed manner, entertained us with reminiscences of his 40 plus years working at stations on our branch line.

During the last three days of these celebrations (Friday to Sunday) the Calstock Parish Archive mounted an exhibition about the viaduct and we visited yesterday afternoon. Vic and Lynda had done a superb job with it, I wish I could have spent more time there.

There had been other celebratory events in the village which I didn't see - life is never long enough! But at least I got a flavour of it all.

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