Radstock - History

History

Radstock has been settled since the Iron Age. Its importance grew with the construction of the Fosse Way, the Roman road that ran along what is now part of the A367 in Radstock. As a result, the town was known as Stoche at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, meaning the stockade by the Roman road, from the Old English stoc. The rad part of the name is believed to relate to red; the soil locally is reddish marl. The parish of Radstock was part of the Kilmersdon Hundred,

The Great Western Railway, and the Somerset and Dorset Railway, established stations and marshalling yards in the town. Radstock was the terminus for the southern branch of the Somerset Coal Canal, which was turned into a tramway in 1815. It then became a central point for railway development, with large coal depots, wash houses, workshops and a gas works. As part of the development of the Wiltshire, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, an 8-mile (13 km) line from Radstock to Frome was built to carry the coal. In the 1870s the broad-gauge line was converted to standard gauge and connected to the Bristol and North Somerset Line which linked the town to the Great Western Railway. The Radstock Railway Land covers the old marshalling yards and sheds and comprises an area of approximately 8.8 hectares of land which is the subject of ongoing planning and development applications to redevelop the area.

The town is close to the site of the Radstock rail accident, a rail crash that took place on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, on 7 August 1876. Two trains collided on a single track section, resulting in the deaths of 15 passengers.

The last passenger train services in Radstock closed in 1966, and the last coal mines closed in 1973. Manufacturing industries such as printing, binding and packaging provide some local employment. More recently Radstock has become a commuter town for the nearby cities of Bath and Bristol, leading to traffic problems at peak hours.