Best walks from St Andrews Road

St Andrews Road Station to Avonmouth Station

A flat point-to-point walk through industrial Avonmouth, a district transformed from trees and green fields into a landscape of distribution centres and major roads. From St Andrews Road station the route heads along Kings Weston Lane past the Avonside Trading Estate, passing the forlorn remnants of an old railway level crossing. It runs beneath the M49 motorway and beside a line of four wind turbines, then skirts the Bristol Bioresources and Renewable Energy Park and a sewage works before reaching the poplar-lined track of Ballast Lane. The walk crosses the Shirehampton Rhine by a small bridge and finally reaches the welcome greenery of Avonmouth Park before finishing at Avonmouth station. The area carries a heavy industrial history, once described as among the most polluted places in Britain before modern road systems were laid out, with a past of munitions manufacture and chemical production. Footpaths vary in condition, some eroded by trail bikes and others overgrown but passable. Trains run on the Severn Beach line.

7km. 1h30.

Footpaths vary in condition; some are eroded by trail bikes and others overgrown but passable. The route runs through a heavily industrial area.

Documented by Bristol Rail Campaign.

St Andrews Road Station to Severn Beach Station

A flat point-to-point walk running north alongside the Severn Beach railway line through the industrial fringe of Avonmouth. The opening section is unpromising, following St Andrews Road past distribution centres amid heavy traffic, but the walk improves markedly beyond Chittening, where it picks up woodland paths, old railway sidings and glimpses of habitat reclaimed by nature. The route is unexpectedly rich in 20th-century history: it passes the site of Chittening Platform, a wartime halt that served the area between 1917 and 1964, and the remains of Filling Factory No. 23, a First World War munitions works that produced chemical shells. There are also concrete remnants of a Second World War heavy anti-aircraft battery between the modern works of Wainwright's and King Lifting. Sections of the Severn Way are waymarked along the way, and the landscape is dominated by the Seabank Power Station and the SUEZ energy-recovery centre. The walk ends at Severn Beach station, where there are better refreshment facilities than at the industrial starting point.

6km. 1h30.

The first part of the route runs alongside St Andrews Road past distribution centres with heavy traffic; some footpaths can be overgrown or eroded by trail bikes.

Documented by Bristol Rail Campaign.