Castle Aching

[runs as required]

Delighted to see the Guv'nor has just stomped through the grounded (North London?) coach body that is the WNR's temporary CA offices.

 

dh

[Donw]

Pleased to see you are back it feels like there is someone at the tiller again.

 

Don

[Shadow]

Well, if someone's back on the tiller, then it's probably about time that we headed off on a new tack.

 

Came across this document from Historic England about Goods Sheds.

Starting to read it (well, look at the pictures!), seems quite good.

 

Historic England the-railway-goods-shed-and-warehouse.pdf

[Shadow]

or if you want a weekend away, try this, "The Carriage Room 48"

 

https://www.thehoste.com/rooms-suites/railway-house/

[Nearholmer]

Good to see a revival underway, Edwardian.

 

On holiday accommodation: I keep getting pop-up messages advertising what looks like an interesting holiday let somewhere in Devon, called The Station Masters Flat, being exactly that, above an ex-SR station. I think the google-bots have seen my avatar, and decided that I would feel at home there.

[corneliuslundie]

Yes, John Minnis (or Lens of Sutton Association among other things) has done a good job on good sheds.

I am not sure I fancy staying somewhere where every room has "statement wallpaper" - though i suppose better than the traditional approach of wallpaper printed with arsenic.

Welcome back, boss.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

Well, if someone's back on the tiller, then it's probably about time that we headed off on a new tack.

 

Came across this document from Historic England about Goods Sheds.

Starting to read it (well, look at the pictures!), seems quite good.

 

Historic England the-railway-goods-shed-and-warehouse.pdf

 

I think I identified two photos relevant to our period, facing p. 1, Byfield, SMJ, 1904, and p. 6, Newcastle Forth, NER, 1894. Both feature a MR D299 5-plank open wagon.

 

The gazetteer includes the MR shed at Sutton Park, on the Wolverhampton, Walsall and Water Orton Junction line. It's not the most attractive MR goods shed around - the Sutton Park line, built in 1872, was given rather austere buildings, though retaining many characteristic Midland design features (as opposed to details). Its recent conversion to a pair of dwellings has won a design award from the local Civic Society. (I only mention this as my father was one of the judges!)

[corneliuslundie]

That's better than what I am getting, Nearholmer. The wonderful web has decided that i am looking for a child's first Hornby trainset. It obviously doesn't read RMWeb.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

I am not sure I fancy staying somewhere where every room has "statement wallpaper" - though i suppose better than the traditional approach of wallpaper printed with arsenic.

 

Visited Dove Cottage in the summer. They have a room papered with (repro) period newspapers, as Dorothy Wordsworth described doing in her journal - good thermal insulation and interesting reading too, if you happened to be looking to buy a brougham or rent a house in Grosvenor Square. I'm not sure I'd be wanting to read details of my landlord's financial transactions.

[Edwardian]

Well, if someone's back on the tiller, then it's probably about time that we headed off on a new tack.

 

Came across this document from Historic England about Goods Sheds.

Starting to read it (well, look at the pictures!), seems quite good.

 

Historic England the-railway-goods-shed-and-warehouse.pdf

 

What a great little booklet.  I shall read it with interest.

 

 

I think I identified two photos relevant to our period, facing p. 1, Byfield, SMJ, 1904, and p. 6, Newcastle Forth, NER, 1894. Both feature a MR D299 5-plank open wagon.

 

The gazetteer includes the MR shed at Sutton Park, on the Wolverhampton, Walsall and Water Orton Junction line. It's not the most attractive MR goods shed around - the Sutton Park line, built in 1872, was given rather austere buildings, though retaining many characteristic Midland design features (as opposed to details). Its recent conversion to a pair of dwellings has won a design award from the local Civic Society. (I only mention this as my father was one of the judges!)

 

 

Yes, it immediately struck me that the publication conformed to Compound's First Law of Goods Yards; the Edwardian picture of a country station, Byfield, has but a single general merchandise vehicle present in the yard; a MR 5-plank!

 

 

or if you want a weekend away, try this, "The Carriage Room 48"

 

https://www.thehoste.com/rooms-suites/railway-house/

 

 

Yes, John Minnis (or Lens of Sutton Association among other things) has done a good job on good sheds.

I am not sure I fancy staying somewhere where every room has "statement wallpaper" - though i suppose better than the traditional approach of wallpaper printed with arsenic.

Welcome back, boss.

Jonathan

 

 

I do like the coach.  The other rooms remind me too much of our Landlord's emphatic dining room wallpaper.  If ever in funds, I think we will redecorate!

 

 

That's better than what I am getting, Nearholmer. The wonderful web has decided that i am looking for a child's first Hornby trainset. It obviously doesn't read RMWeb.

Jonathan

 

Perhaps I should have bought one?!?

[Northroader]

The kids gave me a 70th birthday treat at the old Petworth station, which I combined with a trip on the Bluebell, of course.

[Nearholmer]

And, here we see the staff of the West Norfolk Railway celebrating the opening of the new branch of the YMCA at Castle Aching.

 

They haven't quite got into the groove yet, but given a bit of practice .......

Edited November 27, 2017 by Nearholmer

[BG John]

It looks as though someone has edited out the wet fish from the bloke with his arm out horizontal!

[Edwardian]

And, here we see the staff of the West Norfolk Railway celebrating the opening of the new branch of the YMCA at Castle Aching.

 

They haven't quite got into the groove yet, but given a bit of practice .......

 

Thank you, Kevin, for starting my day with audible and sustained laughter!

[Compound2632]

Way, way back I mentioned a postcard of the H.M. The King waiting at Saxby for his connection to St Pancras, the H.M. The Queen having gone on to Wolferton for Sandringham; our eponymous host subsequently posted a copy of same. This was on 7 January 1907, the royal party having come from Chatsworth. I finally succumbed to a copy of Glyn Waite and Laurence Knighton, Rowsley, A Rural Railway Centre (Midland Railway Society, 2003), prompted by Lecorbusier's reference to it. This has further details of these royal journeys, made for the Duchess of Devonshire's New Year parties, though the King and Queen arrived in the New Year - 1 January in 1907. Although on this occasion the King changed trains at Saxby, taking an ordinary express to London (which perhaps stopped specially), in at least one other year the royal train divided at Saxby. On that occasion, having left Rowsley at 12:30pm, the King was scheduled to arrive at St Pancras at 4:00pm but the Queen was due at Wolferton seven minutes earlier - though her portion of the train had left Saxby first.

 

The book also includes the timetable for a journey of the King and Queen of Portugal and suite from Windsor to Rowsley on 21 November 1904 - a joint effort, emblazoned Great Western and Midland Railways. Hand-over was at Bordesley Junction - like any common empty coal wagon - with seven minutes to change engines. I can think of more picturesque spots on that journey at which to be held for seven minutes..

 

The special timetables for these journeys have elaborately decorated frontispieces, despite being marked "For the use of the Company's Servants only". Though that for the King and Queen of Portugal was perhaps for their information also.

 

Also reproduced is a counterfoil copy of ticket of 22 December 1883 - the Duke of Devonshire was presumably spending Christmas at Holker Hall (cosier than Chatsworth, perhaps?) as he paid £43 14s 16d for four private carriages, four covered trucks, nineteen horses and three dogs from Rowsley to Cark via Carnforth. But what would have been the route to Carnforth? Via Manchester and Blackburn to Hellifield or back to Ambergate (or even Derby) then via Leeds? My interpretation of the private carriages and covered trucks is that these were the Duke's road vehicles, which would be loaded onto open or closed carriage trucks, rather than the hire of railway vehicles - family carriages etc. - this is on the basis that he's paying per horse and dog not per horsebox etc. I can't find a scale of charges for conveyance of private carriages in the 1903 timetable but the rate of 50s per carriage paid by his Grace looks more like the sliding scale per 50 miles of journey for horses etc. than a multiple of the first class fare for the journey.

 

A couple of years later the Duke of Rutland dispatched 43 dogs from Rowsley to Nottingham, at 1s per dog - which was the 1903 rate for a dog journey of 30 to 40 miles. (This was a period of no or even negative inflation.) The Midland built three hound vans in 1894 - fully-panelled, looking like 4-wheeled brake vans without duckets - these replace three Kirtley-era vans of unknown appearance. How many passengers each could accommodate isn't stated. If one wasn't available, a horse box would do - per the 1903 TT: Dogs conveyed in horse boxes or other special vehicles are charged at the dog rate, minimum charge as for one horse. Unhelpfully, the horse rates aren't quoted either. When the Prince of Wales' dog travelled from Wolferton to Rowsley via Bourne on 12 November 1895, the fare was 2/6 - a journey of 100 to 130 miles.

 

All of which leads to the question: does Lord Erstwhile hunt?

[Nearholmer]

Beg pardon for stealing your imaginary population, Edwardian, but I seem to recall that it is Lady Erstwhile that hunts (maybe they both hunt).

 

I have her in my head as much the same as the redoubtable Mrs W, in whose house we lived for a year or two before my brothers were born. Mrs W was a widow, and had run a large farm with her husband before he passed away, at which stage she moved into the edge of our small town, buying a great big Victorian villa. She had been born in the 1880s, and was a genuine Victorian/Edwardian country woman - rode to hounds all her life, very robust even when ancient.

 

Her kitchen was huge, with a very high ceiling, and the walls were covered with hunting prints and paintings, one above the other. She used to take me to see the hunt whenever it met within walking distance, and took me to 'ockshuns', where we would pore over great big oil paintings of horses, dogs, dead pheasants etc. Later, she helped us get our first dog, and took us to collect him from a farm in the middle of nowhere, on a dark winter night - her car had what amounted to a leather chesterfield as a back seat, which fitted three boys and a dog.

 

Last I remember of her was going to receive Christmas presents, when I was perhaps six or seven years old. She was tucked-up in great big tall iron bed, covered with quilted blankets. One small lamp in a dark room. Sounds frightening, but it wasn't, because she had a warm, energetic presence, even in what must have been her last weeks.

[Edwardian]

It seems that someone has managed to put another coin in the RMWeb's meter, so we should be good for about another fortnight ....

 

 

Way, way back I mentioned a postcard of the H.M. The King waiting at Saxby for his connection to St Pancras, the H.M. The Queen having gone on to Wolferton for Sandringham; our eponymous host subsequently posted a copy of same. This was on 7 January 1907, the royal party having come from Chatsworth. I finally succumbed to a copy of Glyn Waite and Laurence Knighton, Rowsley, A Rural Railway Centre (Midland Railway Society, 2003), prompted by Lecorbusier's reference to it. This has further details of these royal journeys, made for the Duchess of Devonshire's New Year parties, though the King and Queen arrived in the New Year - 1 January in 1907. Although on this occasion the King changed trains at Saxby, taking an ordinary express to London (which perhaps stopped specially), in at least one other year the royal train divided at Saxby. On that occasion, having left Rowsley at 12:30pm, the King was scheduled to arrive at St Pancras at 4:00pm but the Queen was due at Wolferton seven minutes earlier - though her portion of the train had left Saxby first.

 

The book also includes the timetable for a journey of the King and Queen of Portugal and suite from Windsor to Rowsley on 21 November 1904 - a joint effort, emblazoned Great Western and Midland Railways. Hand-over was at Bordesley Junction - like any common empty coal wagon - with seven minutes to change engines. I can think of more picturesque spots on that journey at which to be held for seven minutes..

 

The special timetables for these journeys have elaborately decorated frontispieces, despite being marked "For the use of the Company's Servants only". Though that for the King and Queen of Portugal was perhaps for their information also.

 

Also reproduced is a counterfoil copy of ticket of 22 December 1883 - the Duke of Devonshire was presumably spending Christmas at Holker Hall (cosier than Chatsworth, perhaps?) as he paid £43 14s 16d for four private carriages, four covered trucks, nineteen horses and three dogs from Rowsley to Cark via Carnforth. But what would have been the route to Carnforth? Via Manchester and Blackburn to Hellifield or back to Ambergate (or even Derby) then via Leeds? My interpretation of the private carriages and covered trucks is that these were the Duke's road vehicles, which would be loaded onto open or closed carriage trucks, rather than the hire of railway vehicles - family carriages etc. - this is on the basis that he's paying per horse and dog not per horsebox etc. I can't find a scale of charges for conveyance of private carriages in the 1903 timetable but the rate of 50s per carriage paid by his Grace looks more like the sliding scale per 50 miles of journey for horses etc. than a multiple of the first class fare for the journey.

 

A couple of years later the Duke of Rutland dispatched 43 dogs from Rowsley to Nottingham, at 1s per dog - which was the 1903 rate for a dog journey of 30 to 40 miles. (This was a period of no or even negative inflation.) The Midland built three hound vans in 1894 - fully-panelled, looking like 4-wheeled brake vans without duckets - these replace three Kirtley-era vans of unknown appearance. How many passengers each could accommodate isn't stated. If one wasn't available, a horse box would do - per the 1903 TT: Dogs conveyed in horse boxes or other special vehicles are charged at the dog rate, minimum charge as for one horse. Unhelpfully, the horse rates aren't quoted either. When the Prince of Wales' dog travelled from Wolferton to Rowsley via Bourne on 12 November 1895, the fare was 2/6 - a journey of 100 to 130 miles.

 

All of which leads to the question: does Lord Erstwhile hunt?

 

Beg pardon for stealing your imaginary population, Edwardian, but I seem to recall that it is Lady Erstwhile that hunts (maybe they both hunt).

I have her in my head as much the same as the redoubtable Mrs W, in whose house we lived for a year or two before my brothers were born. Mrs W was a widow, and had run a large farm with her husband before he passed away, at which stage she moved into the edge of our small town, buying a great big Victorian villa. She had been born in the 1880s, and was a genuine Victorian/Edwardian country woman - rode to hounds all her life, very robust even when ancient.

Her kitchen was huge, with a very high ceiling, and the walls were covered with hunting prints and paintings, one above the other. She used to take me to see the hunt whenever it met within walking distance, and took me to 'ockshuns', where we would pore over great big oil paintings of horses, dogs, dead pheasants etc. Later, she helped us get our first dog, and took us to collect him from a farm in the middle of nowhere, on a dark winter night - her car had what amounted to a leather chesterfield as a back seat, which fitted three boys and a dog.

Last I remember of her was going to receive Christmas presents, when I was perhaps six or seven years old. She was tucked-up in great big tall iron bed, covered with quilted blankets. One small lamp in a dark room. Sounds frightening, but it wasn't, because she had a warm, energetic presence, even in what must have been her last weeks.

 

All fascinating reading. And what a wonderful 'old school' lady (reminds me somewhat of my mother in law, an old Africa hand who once took a 12-bore to blast a spitting cobra that had trapped my wife-to-be up a tree). When a small child, our family dog was procured from just such a redoubtable old lady at a very traditional Leicestershire farm. Probably now  carved up as a 'high-end' residential development, like the Yuppy apartments they made of the Quorn's kennels.   

 

I note with interest your comment that the Queen's portion left Saxby for Wolferton.  I would have assumed that Royal traffic from the Midland to Sandringham would have taken the M&GN to Hillington (there is a record of the various Troops of the Norfolk Yeomanry concentrating by rail at Hillington station for duty at Sandringham), not least because of the incompatible braking systems of the Midland and the Great Eastern.  Your description suggests a portion of Midland coaches.  If it ran to Wolferton, that would require a Midland or Joint loco to run to this GE station, unless the stock was dual-fitted? 

 

Wolferton was the end of the line for Royal traffic, and, rather than run light all the way to Hunstanton to turn, Royal T19s and Royal Clauds ran light, tender first, back to Lynn.  Any Royal train that visits Castle Aching will have to be operated in the same fashion, as I expect that a Claud will not fit on the West Norfolk's diminutive turntables!   

 

Lord Erstwhile probably hunts.  His position in the district would make him an inevitable patron and he does his duty, with what relish on these occasions, I do not know.  Lady Erstwhile certainly hunts, as Kevin points out, expertly and with enthusiasm and determination.   I would assume that this is with the West Norfolk Foxhounds.  Here they are, meeting at Sandringham ...

 

[Northroader]

Talking of ladies wot hunt, here’s Elisabeth, Empress of Austria:

Did you ever see such such style and poise?

Then here’s a loco, no.2 “Jupiter” of the Midland and Great Western Railway. ( They would have to have styled the planned journey booklet thus on the return trip through Bordesley Jc.)

What’s the connection?, well sister loco. (which I don’t have a photo of) was number one of the MGWR, “Empress of Austria”, (it appears she stayed a lot in Ireland, and being a horsey sporting type, was adored by the populace.)

[Bedders]

And, here we see the staff of the West Norfolk Railway celebrating the opening of the new branch of the YMCA at Castle Aching.

 

They haven't quite got into the groove yet, but given a bit of practice .......

Or umpiring - No ball, Bye and Six

[Edwardian]

Post scriptum: If the Duke of Rutland is sending such a quantity of beasts by rail at dog rate, presumably they are hounds, in which case why an odd number?

 

Talking of ladies wot hunt, here’s Elisabeth, Empress of Austria:EE8258CF-C789-4689-AC49-281031CB8439.jpeg
Did you ever see such such style and poise?
Then here’s a loco, no.2 “Jupiter” of the Midland and Great Western Railway. ( They would have to have styled the planned journey booklet thus on the return trip through Bordesley Jc.)
8097AC43-346F-440B-AE2F-F69F4A926C4D.jpeg
What’s the connection?, well sister loco. (which I don’t have a photo of) was number one of the MGWR, “Empress of Austria”, (it appears she stayed a lot in Ireland, and being a horsey sporting type, was adored by the populace.)

 

Poor woman.  She retired from public life pretty much after Mayerling, so perhaps that is when she frequented Ireland?  She was an excellent rider, by all accounts, and took up fencing in her 50s.  Then some cretinous anarchist stabbed her to death.

 

That is a very lovely model of a very elegant locomotive. Starting me thinking whether, if regauged- she could be turned on a 46' table.  Who was the designer and when were the pair outshopped?

 

EDIT: Ah, a D-bogie rebuild.

 

Nice!

Edited November 28, 2017 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

I reckon the Empress of Austria was an early victim of photoshopping. I don't know much about riding, but I've got a feeling that, if she isn't photoshopped, she is about to get badly compressed vertebrae (and possibly worse).

 

Edit: yes, watch how this rider tips herself forward over the horse's neck as she goes into even a small jump https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_oYU5f-8o

Edited November 28, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Edit: yes, watch how this rider tips herself forward over the horse's neck as she goes into even a small jump https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_oYU5f-8o

 

Yet at 1.57-9, she seems, if anything, to be leaning too far back, but probably comes upright in time not to be a drag on the horses mouth.

 

 

I reckon the Empress of Austria was an early victim of photoshopping. I don't know much about riding, but I've got a feeling that, if she isn't photoshopped, she is about to get badly compressed vertebrae (and possibly worse).

 

 

 

Or compressed ribs, Elisabeth was a rigorous corseteer.

 

(a corseteer is not like a Brexiteer, because a corseteer stays).

[Compound2632]

I note with interest your comment that the Queen's portion left Saxby for Wolferton.  I would have assumed that Royal traffic from the Midland to Sandringham would have taken the M&GN to Hillington (there is a record of the various Troops of the Norfolk Yeomanry concentrating by rail at Hillington station for duty at Sandringham), not least because of the incompatible braking systems of the Midland and the Great Eastern.  Your description suggests a portion of Midland coaches.  If it ran to Wolferton, that would require a Midland or Joint loco to run to this GE station, unless the stock was dual-fitted? 

 

Wolferton was the end of the line for Royal traffic, and, rather than run light all the way to Hunstanton to turn, Royal T19s and Royal Clauds ran light, tender first, back to Lynn.  Any Royal train that visits Castle Aching will have to be operated in the same fashion, as I expect that a Claud will not fit on the West Norfolk's diminutive turntables!   

 

Lord Erstwhile probably hunts.  His position in the district would make him an inevitable patron and he does his duty, with what relish on these occasions, I do not know.  Lady Erstwhile certainly hunts, as Kevin points out, expertly and with enthusiasm and determination.   I would assume that this is with the West Norfolk Foxhounds.  Here they are, meeting at Sandringham ...

 

The carriage in the postcard you posted would appear to be the Great Eastern's 50' clerestory royal saloon built for the new king; presumably this was dual-fitted.

 

The instructions for the arrival of a Royal Train at Rowsley (from the Derby direction) would be found deeply distressing by modern railway personnel. The train was to be brought to a stand on the down line, clear of the crossover at the east end of the station; it was then set back through this crossover onto the up line, finally drawing forward into the up platform - which had the main station building and was on the Chatsworth side of the line. That's a loaded passenger train being reversed through two facing (for this movement) points without locks. (The up side of the crossover was a single slip giving access from the down line to a short siding.) EDIT: and then moving forward through a third.

 

Then here’s a loco, no.2 “Jupiter” of the Midland and Great Western Railway. ( They would have to have styled the planned journey booklet thus on the return trip through Bordesley Jc.)

 

A railway which had ambitions for the best of both worlds - though it missed out - I think the North Western Railway of Ireland was absorbed by the Great Northern ditto.

 

Post scriptum: If the Duke of Rutland is sending such a quantity of beasts by rail at dog rate, presumably they are hounds, in which case why an odd number?

 

"Please explain".

 

The £43 14/6 for transporting his Grace of Devonshire's carriages, trucks, horses and dogs from Rowsley to Cark compares with the monthly wage bill of £180 for the 42 traffic department staff at Rowsley about that time. The stationmaster got £125 pa.

 

No doubt the staff had to doff their caps for all these regal and ducal and dog-ducal comings and goings. Perhaps some had more sympathy for the Anarchist-Communist Annual Picnic, held on the August Bank Holiday Monday for at least twenty years from 1888 - the venue was always somewhere accessible from the Midland's Peak Forest line - in 1908: "Comrades will meet at Haddon Hall, and not at the Railway Station. Tea at 4.30 prompt*. The Conference, which this year will be of unusual interest and importance, will be held a 2 o'clock on the river bank, near the Hall."

 

*Clearly the event organisation was in Communist rather than Anarchist hands.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

Someone remarked in another thread that, if we'd had a revolution c1918, as some thought probable, we would have had the most conservative communists in the world. An annual tea by a river-bank certainly supports that view.

 

5:15-5:30pm The Overthrow of Capitalism (if wet, in the church hall).

[Compound2632]

Someone remarked in another thread that, if we'd had a revolution c1918, as some thought probable, we would have had the most conservative communists in the world. An annual tea by a river-bank certainly supports that view.

 

5:15-5:30pm The Overthrow of Capitalism (if wet, in the church hall).

 

Although Lenin doubted the Germans could stage a revolution - they'd queue up to buy platform tickets before storming the railway stations.