A station in the fields
Brunel’s Great Western Railway main line from London to Bristol crossed the Vale of White Horse in 1840, running across the north of Wantage parish. Like many towns in the vale, Wantage found the railway passing it by. The nearest station, Wantage Road, opened in 1846 beside the line in Grove parish, more than two miles north of the Market Place.
Changing the town’s trade
The station reshaped the local economy. Goods that had gone by the Wilts and Berks Canal turned to the railway, and the canal went into long decline. Farm produce, milk and machinery from the Wantage and Challow engineering works could now reach London and the West quickly. The awkward distance from town to station was solved in 1875, when the independent Wantage Tramway opened alongside the road from the town to the station yard. Passengers changing trains walked under the railway bridge to the tram sidings.
Closure
The tramway lost its passengers to road transport in 1925 and its goods traffic in 1945. The station outlived it by nearly twenty years. British Railways withdrew passenger services on 7 December 1964, in the closures that followed the Beeching report, and the goods yard shut on 29 March 1965. The buildings were demolished, though the platforms remain beside the line.
A station again?
With the rapid growth of Wantage and Grove, reopening a station has been discussed for years. Oxfordshire County Council published proposals and a business case for a new station at Grove in 2018, with two sites near the old one shortlisted. A further feasibility study was commissioned in 2025.