Devizes branch

The Devizes branch was a railway line from the Holt, Wiltshire to Pewsey, Wiltshire, and named after Devizes, the largest town on the line. The line from Holt to Devizes was built by the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway in 1857, connecting with the line from Chippenham to Trowbridge (now on the Wessex Main Line). The Great Western Railway extended their Reading-Hungerford railway station to Devizes via Pewsey in 1862, providing a direct line from London to the West Country through Devizes. (The line from Pewsey was extended to Taunton in 1906). The building of a by-pass line through Westbury removed most traffic from the Devizes line, and it closed in 1966.