RAILWAYS ROUND EXMOOR - ROBIN MADGE & ALLAN STANISTREET - PIXZ (HALSGROVE)

Although Exmoor is renowned for its wild landscapes and impressive coast, it has also been home to some remarkable railways. Significant and much-loved lines such as the Taunton-Barnstaple, Exe Valley and Barnstaple-Ilfracombe have long gone, swept away by the Beeching axe, although traces of them can be followed on the ground to this day. Others catered for industry which once found a home on the moor, such as the West Somerset Mineral Railway, whose spectacular incline still descends from the heights of the Brendon Hills towards the Bristol Channel. Above all, Exmoor today boasts the unique Lynton-Lynmouth Cliff Railway; the longest preserved steam railway in the country, in the West Somerset Railway which skirts the northern fringes of the National Park; and the Lynton-Barnstaple Railway which, when fully restored, will be the longest narrow gauge line in England. Now fully revised, updated and re-illustrated by Allan Stanistreet, this classic guide to the railways round Exmoor appears again by popular demand. Fully comprehensive, it tells the history of Exmoor’s railways from their earliest days and captures the ongoing story of the area’s preserved railways in their twenty-first century glory. Robin Madge was a highly regarded teacher, head of the Art Department at Huish’s Grammar School, Taunton, and railway enthusiast, who wrote the first edition of Railways Round Exmoor in 1971, and updated it several times thereafter. Allan Stanistreet is the author of six books, and has assisted with several others, as well as numerous magazine articles, book reviews, the first four editions of the West Somerset Railway Guide Book and the first WSR Stations and Buildings book.