More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, 65179 said:

Sadly no details, although there's a chance are you could play snap with later views of the BP fleet and see these wagons in later guise such was the longevity of these vehicles.  You can see from the photo that they are a typical late 19th century design with wooden frames,  short cradle, domed manhole, wooden end pillars and crossheads, wire securing ropes etc. Thus, despite being earlier, with many features in common with what Coppin refers to as the 1901 Home Office design.

 

Such as this, HRMS photo AAX119.

[65179]

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Such as this, HRMS photo AAX119.

 

Pretty close, but that has a saddle rather than cradle mounted barrel per the A-C Oil Co. tanks.  I had a look in Geoff Kent's The 4mm Wagon vol.2.  It's another case of close, but no cigar - all the right features lasting to Nationalisation and beyond, just not necessarily on the same wagon.  Both sources confirm the longevity of tank wagon with heavy wooden stanchions and crossbeams though!

 

Simon

 

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by 65179

[65179]

Again Paul Bartlett of this parish has a couple of saddle mounted tank wagons contemporary with the Anglo-Caucasian ones:

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/smbptank/h6ea441e9

 

Simon

[Compound2632]

To my untutored eye, that does look very like. The relationship of the tank to the frame is similar, so I think the tank is the same diameter, though I have the impression that the Anglo-Caucasian one is longer, making it 14 tons rather than 12 tons?

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Such as this, HRMS photo AAX119.

I made one of those from wood, card, wire and other odds and ends when I was 17.  It even looked like what it was supposed to when it was complete.

[Mikkel]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

[snip]

Some of the material could be turned into articles for a suitable journal, though much of it is probably too obscure - or too speculative -even for that.

 

Journals and magazines are one way of recording and presenting material for the future. The web is another. Over a year, this thread has more content than most quarterly society journals that I can think of.  It works as it is, I'm merely pondering the challenge of how to make the information in such threads more easily accessible for the future. But I am probably just complicating things 

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Mikkel
To clarify

[BWsTrains]

5 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

 

Journals and magazines are one way of recording and presenting material for the future. The web is another. Over a year, this thread has more content than most quarterly society journals that I can think of.  It works as it is, I'm merely pondering the challenge of how to make the information in such threads more easily accessible for the future. But I am probably just complicating things 

 

Mikkel,

 

Very good point. It's interesting that the Blog structure on here is much better set up than Topics for accessing someone's work, IMO Farthing sets the benchmark. Then despite this, I have to keep an external hyperlink to gain quick access to it, doh!

 

Two very large Topics that I'm aware of, "West End Workbench", "Kirkby Luneside" have been structured with excellent indices to key items. The former particularly well done if you're interested in his vast array of kit projects. For less accessible material, I've taken to cut and paste key items out to "Word" as otherwise I take ages to find something discovered even just months ago.

 

The big risk with depending on the internet as the primary source is the dreaded "dead link" or even material disappearing behind a pay-wall. I had this just this week when a resource on Bridge (the game) which I valued did just that, with very steep monthly access fees putting it now totally out of reach.

 

Colin

[Mikkel]

1 hour ago, BWsTrains said:

Two very large Topics that I'm aware of, "West End Workbench", "Kirkby Luneside" have been structured with excellent indices to key items. The former particularly well done if you're interested in his vast array of kit projects.

 

And so you see, Stephen, how we are painting you into a corner . How about a thread index? We could divide the work among us, spreading it over time. Or you could just start the index from the current post.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

And so you see, Stephen, how we are painting you into a corner . How about a thread index? We could divide the work among us, spreading it over time. Or you could just start the index from the current post.

 

No index. If there was an index, readers would only look at the stuff they think they're interested in. If they have to trawl through the whole lot, they might find something unexpectedly interesting. I know I have!

 

I'm currently re-reading Cecil Torr's Small Talk at Wreyland - essential reading for anyone wanting to absorb Victorian/Edwardian atmosphere. I'd like to think this thread follows the pattern of random association in that book. The experience of reading it - cover-to-cover or just dipping in looking for something he mentions - would be ruined by the temptation of an index. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Compound2632

[65179]

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

To my untutored eye, that does look very like. The relationship of the tank to the frame is similar, so I think the tank is the same diameter, though I have the impression that the Anglo-Caucasian one is longer, making it 14 tons rather than 12 tons?

 

Quite possibly, although there's limited evidence of re-rating of some of these tanks through the course of their v long lives.  I've had a look at Geoff Gamble's British Railway Wagons: Railtanks (Railways in Profile No. 4) and found a couple of views of RY Pickering built railtanks looking very much like the 1901 design for the Home Office, although they are registered 1900. As noted upthread these have the short cradle and large timber end stanchions etc (when I first looked at the photo upthread I was convinced that the wagons had a short cradle, but I now think the most I can say is that they don't show obvious signs of the large cross-mounted saddle timbers above the solebar that you would expect to see on a saddle-mounted tank of this vintage). However still nothing that looks exactly like these longer Anglo-Caucasian railtanks. 

 

I don't have Tourret so I've exhausted my sources of railtank info (nothing helpful in the Larkin Non-Pool stock volumes either). Frustrating!

 

Simon

Edited October 23, 2020 by 65179
Clarification regarding 1900 tanks

[Compound2632]

@65179, thanks for all this. I come to cylindrical tank wagons from a position of willful ignorance, having presumed them to be "not my (c. 1902) period" but I'm beginning to see that it ain't necessarily so. 

[Compound2632]

I'm hoping that I've found a method for applying the Archer resin "rivet" transfers directly onto plasticard that works for me. All I'm doing is using neat MicroSet only - no water:

 

 

They haven't fallen off yet! This photo brings out a lot of wonkiness that isn't so evident to the unaided eye...

 

I've followed the pattern of bolts on the corner-plates that I see in the photos in the Saltney book. I note that this differs from the pattern used by @drduncan on his 3D print, as reported by @Mikkel:

and on the 7 mm scale brass kit by WEP, as built by @Wenlock:

which follow the style of the corner-plates found on the later, iron or steel framed wagons, in having bolts only around the perimeter. I'm not saying they're wrong, merely that I'm following what I see in the photos I have, which are right for the wagon I'm building. The WEP kit also seems to me to be a little lacking in solebar ironwork but overdone in solebar bolt heads amiidships, again compared to the photos I'm working from. Maybe wagons built to Swindon lots were subtly different in design? 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[drduncan]

That’s absolutely the right approach: model from photos whenever possible. Of course the problem is when there are no photos...

 

The 2 plank I sent to Mikkel was based on a description in the Saltney book that suggests that the first two planks might not have had doors.

 

DrDuncan

[Compound2632]

I had been puzzled as to the identity of the two non-Midland covered goods wagons with X-framing seen in this mid-1890s photo of Birmingham Central Goods Station, one at the extreme left and one away down the line of open wagons. I've just realised that at least the nearer one and probably the further one are LSWR vehicles, of the type that became SR diagram 1410 [G. Bixley et al., An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1984) Ch. 4]. Th absence of any sign of doors on the nearer one had been bothering me until I saw that whereas on Midland covered goods wagons, the door always slides to the right, on these LSWR wagons, it slides to the left.

 

The two D353 wagons next to it, one being unloaded into the dray, stand just 10ft tall to the top of the roof; the D362 beyond is 11ft tall, which is also the height given in the drawing of SR diagram 1410 in Bixley, so that seems to match up.

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, drduncan said:

That’s absolutely the right approach: model from photos whenever possible. Of course the problem is when there are no photos...

 

The 2 plank I sent to Mikkel was based on a description in the Saltney book that suggests that the first two planks might not have had doors.

 

DrDuncan

 

Which Lot was that? My reference photos from the Saltney book are, for the 2-plank:

• 20159, Lot 97 (not Saltney), Plate 23
• 19159, Lot 75, Plate 28
• 20435, Lot 112, Plate 29

which appear identical in all visible features.

 

For the 1-plank, I have used 13521, Lot 33, Plate27, which seems to be the same as the 2-plank wagons in details of solebars, side-rail, buffers, brakes and running gear (other than the replacement oil axleboxes). The 4-plank Lot 66 wagon is rather more speculative, being based on the partial view in a GWR safety campaign document of 1914, discussed here:

noting that the frame, brakes, running gear, etc. are again the same as those of the 2-plank wagons.

[Mikkel]

Regarding the 2-plank without door, I have been wondering if one is shown in plate 31 on page 57 (see caption). ,

 

The one I am working on does have doors though. Duncan, you kindly sent me both types.

[drduncan]

Oops! I really ought to keep track of what designs I think I’ve done....

[Compound2632]

On 23/10/2020 at 22:52, Mikkel said:

Regarding the 2-plank without door, I have been wondering if one is shown in plate 31 on page 57 (see caption). ,

 

The one on the right. The reasoning being that as it has lower sides, probably being two 9" rather than two 11" planks, it is either from Lot 21, built at Saltney, or Lot 20, built at Worcester, and the Worcester ones are known from photographs, presumably showing no door.

 

The wagon in the centre of Plate 31 is, I believe, a broad gauge convert, like the wagon at Huntly & Palmers that @Chrisbr identified:

I'm still struggling with reconciling the dimension quoted - particularly width - with what I see but my eventual aim is to model that wagon. 

 

Meanwhile, mass production of Saltney wagons continues:

 

 

The notch cut in the base of the MJT axleguard units is to clear the tail of the coupling hook.

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Skinnylinny]

A question for those more aware of Midland wagons than myself (this seemed the place to ask!). I'd like to model a D302 wagon as there's one at the local preserved railway (Bo'ness & Kinneil, in the SRPS museum). However, I'd like to have a crack at doing it in 7mm, and that means that, in order to run on my club's 7mm layout, I'd need to model it in BR condition. Unfortunately, my Essery only has one photo of a D302 in BR condition., and that's in "unpainted wood". 

Does anyone know (or, better, have photographic evidence!) of these wagons in BR unfitted grey, or know how long they lasted for?

[Compound2632]

37 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

A question for those more aware of Midland wagons than myself (this seemed the place to ask!). I'd like to model a D302 wagon as there's one at the local preserved railway (Bo'ness & Kinneil, in the SRPS museum). However, I'd like to have a crack at doing it in 7mm, and that means that, in order to run on my club's 7mm layout, I'd need to model it in BR condition. Unfortunately, my Essery only has one photo of a D302 in BR condition., and that's in "unpainted wood". 

Does anyone know (or, better, have photographic evidence!) of these wagons in BR unfitted grey, or know how long they lasted for?

 

With the last (and largest) lots built post-Great War and a 30+ year lifetime, extended by the second war, there'd be a good chance of survival into the 1950s. I'd be fairly confident that unpainted wood would be the usual BR-era condition; it's certainly the condition of other wagons photographed in BR days in Midland Wagons. So, a nice modelling challenge...

 

Is there any evidence of any wood-framed wagon at all in traffic sporting the BR grey livery or is it a work of fiction?

Edited October 25, 2020 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Tavender’s book includes an analysis of points of origin of coal and coke traffic received at Sheffield Park, an obscure wayside station on a minor branch of the LB&SCR in deepest Sussex [Tavender, op. cit. N707]. This draws on an article by Jonathan Abson in the Brighton Circle’s magazine of some date before April 1990; fortuitously in another topic @Nick Holliday has recently reproduced further data from this article, covering all goods traffic received:

(I’d be very grateful to anyone who could put me in the way of the original article.) The data is from the station’s goods register and covers the four months in the winter of 1899/1900, 30 Nov – 31 Mar.

 

According to the 1904 edition of the RCH Handbook of Railway Stations (reprinted by David & Charles, 1970), Sheffield Park could handle the full range of passenger and goods traffic, including a crane of 5 ton capacity. The 1898 OS 25” survey shows a loading bank with a siding either side, one of which look as if it could be used for end unloading of wheeled vehicles. There’s also a stub siding end-on to the bank, which might also be for end loading, but this 1963 photo shows the end of the bank occupied by a cattle pen. There were a pair of longer sidings, which would be used for coal and presumably other bulky traffic that could be unloaded directly into a cart, such as hay. On the opposite side of the line were sidings serving a sawmill and the Mid Sussex Creamery.

 

As far as coal traffic is concerned, Sheffield Park received 54 wagons of coal and six of coke in this period. Assuming a half-and-half mix of 8 ton and 10 ton wagons and that this four-month winter period accounts for about half of the district’s consumption, that equates to about 1,000 tons of coal per year. Taking an estimate of one ton of domestic coal per head of population per year, and assuming that there was no significant coal-consuming industry served, that would imply that the station was supplying a population of around 1,000. That is about the same as the population of the Fletching Civil Parish at the 2011 census, so seems to me improbably high, especially as the rural poor of Sussex probably had access to other, cheaper sources of fuel than coal such as under-wood from managed woodland.

 

Of the coal wagons, 25 were PO wagons, to which I will return. Eleven were Midland, which Tavender presumes originated from Toton, or at least came via there. He gives the numbers, which are all plausible enough for D299 wagons, although some could be the D351 end-door equivalent. As @Crimson Rambler has demonstrated, even at this date some could be dumb buffered ex-PO wagons. Nine were LNWR, Tavender presuming these came from Walsall, i.e. the Cannock Chase coalfield, though there were plenty of other possibilities, as has been mentioned in this thread recently. At this date, these are almost certainly D53 traffic coal wagons, like the Midland D299 of 8 ton capacity, the programme of rebuilding to the D54 10 ton version not starting until a couple of years later. Six were Great Northern, presumed from Doncaster. Of these, five have numbers with a 0 prefix, indicating that they were wagons hired by the GN. There was one wagon from the Great Central and one from the North Staffordshire. As far as I can collect from G.F. Chadwick, North Staffordshire Wagons (Wild Swan. 1993) at this date the Knotty had no high sided mineral wagons, the bulk of its open wagon stock consisting of 1-plank and 2-plank fixed-side wagons and 3-plank dropside wagons, but there were some 3-plank wagons with side doors, 2’3” deep with curved raised ends, which might have been used for coal traffic. There was a solitary LBSC wagon, received from Deptford Wharf – coal ultimately from Newcastle, perhaps.

 

Of the PO wagons, two were operated by a local coal merchant – G. Newington & Co. of Lewis – and five by London factors, including such well-known names as Parry and Rickett. The remainder were colliery wagons. Two from Stockingford in the Warwickshire coalfield:

 

 

One from Cannock & Rugeley Collieries and three from Pelsall Colliery, in the Cannock Chase coalfield:

 

 

Eight from collieries in Derbys / Notts / South Yorks, including three from Staveley, one from Talk o’ the Hill, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, one from the Wigan Coal & Iron Co – the most distant location – and a solitary Welsh wagon, Cardiff Navigation.

 

We’ve “spotted” a Pelsall wagon heading up to Willesden behind a Coal Engine at Bushey in 1897 and, thanks to @Crimson Rambler, a Talk o’ the Hill wagon heading home down the Midland main line at Wellingborough in 1898, so it all hangs together!

 

The coke traffic was mostly local, from Tunbridge Wells, Eastbourne, and Portslade – all places with gas works. Three of the five LBSC wagons involved can be identified exactly: Nos. 8825 and 8881 were steel-framed 10 ton Open As from the batch built by Birmingham RC&W Co. in 1897, SR diagram 1371, while No. 9984 was a 6-plank mineral wagon of 10 ton capacity from a batch built by Ashbury in 1898, SR diagram 1372 [G. Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 2 (OPC, 1985)]. These were, as far as I can work out, the earliest LBSCR wagons built specifically for mineral traffic, so the other wagons (including the one bringing coal from Deptford Wharf) were probably older Open As or possibly Open Ds. There is one solitary Midland wagon bringing coke. This could be a D342 coke wagon, if it was a full 8 ton load. We’ve seen from the Bushey and Wellingborough trains that despite the availability of coke from local gasworks, there was some demand in London or south of the Thames for coke from midlands suppliers, perhaps because it had specific properties. But it’s hard to see what the demand for such would be in a rural area such as that served by Sheffield Park.

 

Coal and coke traffic accounted for just 8.6% of the 702 wagons received at Sheffield Park during that winter but 80% of the “foreign” wagons. Traffic was dominated by merchandise arriving in ordinary LBSC open wagons, about half of which were sheeted, and covered goods wagons – 69% of the total wagons received, or 28 wagons per week. There were about 2 – 3 wagons per week received empty for loading, all LBSC. There was a steady flow of timber wagons, all LBSC, serving the local sawmill – was this just sawn timber out, or also uncut timber in? The remaining specialised wagons – cattle and machinery / road trucks, were also all LBSC.

 

That leaves just 14 foreign merchandise wagons – 2% of the total received, under one a week. Of these, six were Midland opens – probably D299s, possibly D305 dropside wagons, depending on the traffic. There were two North Eastern opens, along with one from the Great Central, and box vans (covered goods wagons) from the LNWR and Great Eastern – one each. These are all from lines north of the Thames, dominated by the companies serving the major industrial areas. However, in the absence of detailed information, we don’t know whether these were consignments of manufactured goods or lower-value bulk materials such as lime or building materials – only a third of the foreign open wagons were recorded as having sheets.

 

Three SECR covered goods wagons were received in this period, the only visitors from one of the neighbouring southern lines. @Nearholmer, with local knowledge, speculated that flour was a possible cargo for these wagons.

 

Very conspicuous by their absence are any Great Western wagons. At the end of 1922, the Great Western had the third largest wagon fleet in the country, after the North Eastern and the Midland (and counting the LNWR and L&Y separately). Clearly the West Country had nothing to offer rural Sussex (no LSWR wagons either but that company’s wagon fleet was a sixth of the GWR’s) but one might have though there would be a consignment from the West Midlands routed via Reading. On the other hand, there was only one LNWR merchandise wagon received.

 

As a very general conclusion, one can say that the vast majority of goods traffic at this rural South of England station was local, the only commodity being brought in in quantity from outside the area being coal, at least half of which came from the Notts / Derbys / S. Yorks coalfield, with Cannock Chase being the principal alternative and South Wales hardly figuring at all. The Midland had the major share of the merchandise traffic from the industrial midlands and north, as well as the largest share of coal in non-PO wagons. Of those 18 Midland wagons, most if not all would have been D299 opens – an average of about one a week. That’s an average of around one D299 per week. So, once again I assert that every pre-Grouping goods yard should have one!

 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Nearholmer]

A different ‘coal number’ that I’ve seen advocated and used is 1cwt/household.week, which seems to work as an average across households from the huge country house to the poor lone widow.

 

At SP specifically, the dairy possibly used a fair bit of coal, skewing things a bit. The ‘big house’ must have got through vast amounts too. 

[Nick Holliday]

This may be pertinent to the above discussion.  Taken from Klaus Marx's book on the Lewes & East Grinstead Railway:

Other Goods Traffic (Timber and Dairy products already described)

To simplify matters it will best serve the purpose if the remaining types of goods are classified as either in-coming or out-going. Of the latter, fruit produce was probably the most important asset. Large quantities of gooseberries originated from Chelwood Gate, two to three tons daily were in the early 1920s loaded on to the 6.3pm up train, which was allowed a five-minute wait.  Other loads went to Brighton and Eastbourne.  Farm produce came next, with a brisk cattle traffic, horseboxes in regular use, and on special occasions cattle trains were run to Lewes, Eastbourne and Hastings. Pigs sent every Monday to Lewes market on the 10.3am train were another regular feature.  Of hay, seven or eight trucks would go out of a day if the harvest had been good, Nightingales of Crawley and Lillicos of Croydon having large consignments.  The procedure was for hay to be cut out of the stack on the farm and tied up in trusses, which were loaded on rail. Maize, grain and dairy cake came from Newnhams of Danehill, and a steady flow of bean and pea sticks and particularly hop poles was sent through the railway by Ben Newman, a local woodman.  As late as 1942 a new concern, Passavants & Co, dealing in rabbit skins, set up at the river end of the timber yard and sent its unusual cargo by rail. For a brief period from 1949 to 1952 the Sheffield Park Estate grew sugar beet. This was loaded from the dock adjoining the down platform and was probably the last outward traffic in full truckloads from Sheffield Park.

The incoming goods presented an even odder assortment.  Building materials, very difficult to transport by road, arrived for the East Sussex local councils and contractors; flints from Portslade and Midsomer  Norton, roadstone (Kentish rag) from Maidstone, road granite and bricks from the Midlands came by the truckful. Tools of all kinds came in for the farmers, who also ordered manure in bulk for their strawberry crops. Thirty-two bags of flour came in a day for Newnhams.

Livestock traffic was seasonal. At the end of September and staying the winter till March, would come 30 to 40 trucks of young sheep from Romney Marsh in Kent, sent inland to keep for the winter when the marsh was too wet. Cattle arrived from Scotland too. Cattle wagons turned up liberally covered in lime, which was the only effective form of disinfectant. Cleaning them out was a messy and unpopular job, often deferred when it should have been carried out every time the vehicles were emptied. Cattle feeding stuffs and oil cakes arrived by rail, coal regularly of course; and one or two gigantic blocks of salt arrived to keep the neighbourhood well stocked each year, an arrangement which continued till about 1930. In the pre-1914 period the goods yard was often full to capacity and there were times when no wagons could be accepted straightaway.

Sheffield Park was also the carrier centre for a wide area stretching as far as Nutley and Chelwood Gate.  The local merchants provided their own carriers, Joe Martin for Fletching, A. H. Rayward for Turners Green, George Martin for Chailey, Simeon Wickens for Danehill and T. W. Freelands for Nutley, to mention only a few well-known local tradesmen of their day who drew their goods straight out of the yard. One who was permanently ensconced there was W. Stevenson of Fletching, who ran a coal business and had a wharf at the station up by the crane. At the time of the Grouping, Sheffield Park was still receiving three loaded coal wagons a week.  There also used to be a covered goods shed, north of the cattle bay. The date of its removal is not certain.

The station was served by the daily Lewes-Kingscote goods train, which passed on its way up at 10 o'clock, taking care to pick up the loaded trucks only on the way back around 2pm. It provided some amusing antics for, on its way up with a load of sometimes up to 40 wagons (the maximum) out of Lewes, a stop at Sheffield Park was often fraught with difficulties. Wise enginemen would back out of the goods yard and, reversing again, shunt the whole train up past the road bridge before running forward again, gathering speed through the station, to take a running swing at the rising curve past the girder bridge. The return journey, if the train was at full length again, also presented some interesting shunting problems. 

Apart from local carriers, who did their own collecting and delivery, the greater burden of the work devolved upon the station staff. The porters had regular turns in the goods yard but by far the hardest worked were the clerks, two until 1926, from when Sheffield Park had one full time and one shared three days with Newick & Chailey. They were at it from 7.20am  to 8.30pm, with a break for mid-afternoon tea in the years  before 1914; in the 1920s the hours were 8.15am to 6.15pm, but they  often  worked  beyond  7pm. They not only had to issue and collect tickets and, being a full post office (head  district below  Lewes), accept  parcels, issue postal orders, prepare mail bags for the 2pm and 6pm  trains, sealing and stamping the bags and dealing with the  telegraph and telegrams, but they also had to weigh, book up and bill in duplicate the goods sent by passenger trains, tackle passenger and parcel accounts, invoices and miscellaneous returns, and keep an eye  alert for bills that had been frequently confused with Sheffield, Yorkshire.  Further they had, as previously mentioned, to deal with timber and, to cap it all, were still expected to help out in the yard loading fruit or bailing hay.  (Incidentally mention of fruit brings to mind 17 year old Arthur  Avis, a farm labourer, who on 21 Jan 1908 was fined 10s or, in the alternative, sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment  by the Lewes Bench for stealing oranges, the property of the railway company, from the goods shed at Sheffield Park.)

The trouble with all these analyses is that there is so little accurate information available, just a few snapshots which may, or may not, reflect the day to day events. At Sheffield Park there would probably have been a completely different traffic pattern during the summer months, as the above hints at, but without further records we will never be sure.

[Andy Hayter]

Regarding the population, remember that many more children were born per household (not all survived of course)  and multi-generational households were also common.  

Probably only broadly indicative, but in my current village, the population in 1911 was in excess of 850.  Today it is around 270 but there are not empty properties nor have any been torn down.

[Nearholmer]

Nick,

 

Good stuff nevertheless. Looks as if my flour coming in was wrong, it was going out [no, re-reading it I was right, incoming, to the local miller, who presumably acted as wholesaler] but my hard stone and specialist livestock guesses weren't far out.

 

Bricks are interesting, because the area* used to produce lots of brick and tile, but the local brick is quite soft, so the Midland brick coming in was probably hard brick, at least until the 1930s, when mass production north of London began to undercut the price of local brick, a process that took years of attrition to kill off the industry in Sussex, apart from some very specialist stuff, in the 1970s.

 

I love the way he talks about the station serving a wide area, making Nutley and Chelwood Gate sound like the far ends of the earth, when you can walk to either in about half an hour, or cycle in a quarter (and that's up a fair hill to Nutley).

 

Kevin

 

*There was a small brickworks at Danehill, half way between SP and Horsted Keynes until the mid-1970s, and bigger one at Jarvis Brook, and there were vast numbers of mini-brickworks in the area for short periods, because the clay is so good that it can be fired in hacks at the site of building.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by Nearholmer