STARTLED residents checked their homes for late night intruders when noise from engineering work on the railway at Brinkworth rang out over the village.

The work, part of a £40bn electrification programme being undertaken by Network Rail, started earlier this week, but not all villagers were alerted, leaving some wondering what was going on.

Helen Clarke was one of those disturbed by the noise.

“I honestly thought my next door neighbour was playing her drums,” she said. “When it got to about 10 to 11 I thought: ‘That’s a bit late.’”

Helen, who lives in The Street, decided to pop out and knock on her neighbour’s door to ask for the noise to be turned down.

“I quickly realised there was no way this was drumming practice. I could hear it echoing through the street,” she said.

She worked out it was coming from the rail line.

“It stopped about half an hour later and I thought that was it,” she said.

“Then it started up again. I think I closed my eyes at 1.30am and it was still going on.”

Luckily her young son was undisturbed. “Fortunately he sleeps like a log,” she said.

“He once slept through a smoke alarm, but when you’ve got small children you don’t want to put in earplugs in case anything happens.”

She said none of her near neighbours had letters but if she had been told what was happening she could have gone to bed earlier or made arrangements to stay elsewhere.

“I didn’t have a clue what they were doing,” she said.

Some puzzled householders went on to social media in the middle of the night.

Ali Potter wrote: “I was out checking the animals and poor dog was running around looking for an escaped horse/cow or an intruder.”

Ann Cornelius said: “I have just checked everything in the house to see what it was. Glad to know it’s not me.”

Karen Wood was one of those who did receive a letter about the piling work, but she said it was vague over dates.

“I understand they need to do it while trains aren’t running, but most of us work during the day, which is not easy when you can’t sleep at night because of the noise,” she said.

A spokesman for Network Rail said the piling work in the area was due to finish on Friday night.

“No further piling will take place in this area for the rest of the year,” he said.

“We take great consideration for our lineside neighbours and ensured that all residents potentially affected by noise from this work were informed of when they were taking place in advance.

“We also regularly update our dedicated website to keep residents informed of when piling work will take place.

“This work is unavoidably noisy, but is essential to facilitate the introduction of a new fleet of electric trains.”