The railway that never was

Had Gavrilo Princip not shot Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on June 28th 1914, thus setting off the chain of events that led to the First World War, there would be a train running under this bridge four times a day, to and from Fishguard harbour which lies less than a mile away.

When the railway first reached Goodwick (where Fishguard harbour actually is) in 1899, the final stretch involved an incline that proved troublesome for the engines. Since there were high hopes that the new harbour, with its ferry to Ireland and visiting passenger liners, would attract a flood of long distance travellers, plans were set in motion to construct an alternative railway line up this damp valley, providing a short cut-off to join the main line a little further along.

An embankment was built, and two bridges, one to take the line across a lane and this one to carry a lane across the line. But then the Great War broke out and  'Lord Kitchener Wants YOU!' -  the labourers downed tools to join up, the line was never laid, the cut-off never completed, and very likely, most of those men never returned.

When first I found this massive bridge with its huge buttresses standing all alone in soggy woodland I was mightily puzzled until I put the story together. The original railway line remains in use (maybe as trains improved the incline became less a problem) and it runs a short distance to the west of here, out of sight of this redundant relic.