Fodder traffic for horses back in the day

[lanchester]

I know this has been touched on in various threads, but I am curious about traffic in fodder for the hundreds of thousands of horses employed in the pre-motor age.

 

Villages and small towns, OK I imagine mostly animal feed was sourced locally and didn't involve the railways. But for major conurbations (London, obviously, but Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester etc) that doesn't work - the nearest fields are miles out, and anyway would have more value raising crops or milk or veg for human consumption in the cities (and we know quite a lot about traffics including milk, fruit and veg, etc over the railways).. The rail companies themselves had stable-loads of horses involved in distribution (and some, I know, - Midland had a big depot near Melton Mowbray, I think, and I seem to remember the, Great Western had dedicated fodder wagons/vans for its own needs), but there are all the other 'private' horses involved in distribution from railheads, not to mention hackney carriages, private carriages, cavalry regiments etc. They've all got to be fed. But how? Hay, straw, whatever, low weight, high volume, must be brought in to the cities from many miles away: it is seasonal so you need warehousing. Yet it is hard to find either pictures of rail-based foddering (if that is a word) operations - or indeed of road operations: there are scenes of urban areas crammed with horse-drawn traffic, both passenger and freight, but you don't often see cartloads of hay or the equivalent in urban settings - being delivered for example to those 'mews' that the posh folks had behind thee West End mansions. Nor do you see on the maps and photographs any obvious facilities at stations.

 

So how did the average urban carthorse or Hackney get its feed? Or the stables in areas such as Newmarket? Was hay/straw baled or loose (which might affect the type of wagon employed). And if it wasn't by rail, then...?

 

I know the Lambton Hetton and Joicey  had vans for 'choppy', the local term for feed for pit ponies, but that was only moving a few miles in a mostly rural area on a private railway. How did all those other nags get their oats?

 

If we knew, strikes me it could be an as yet underexploited traffic to model, for example from your otherwise traffic-light BLT?

[Paul H Vigor]

37 minutes ago, lanchester said:

I know this has been touched on in various threads, but I am curious about traffic in fodder for the hundreds of thousands of horses employed in the pre-motor age.

 

Villages and small towns, OK I imagine mostly animal feed was sourced locally and didn't involve the railways. But for major conurbations (London, obviously, but Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester etc) that doesn't work - the nearest fields are miles out, and anyway would have more value raising crops or milk or veg for human consumption in the cities (and we know quite a lot about traffics including milk, fruit and veg, etc over the railways).. The rail companies themselves had stable-loads of horses involved in distribution (and some, I know, - Midland had a big depot near Melton Mowbray, I think, and I seem to remember the, Great Western had dedicated fodder wagons/vans for its own needs), but there are all the other 'private' horses involved in distribution from railheads, not to mention hackney carriages, private carriages, cavalry regiments etc. They've all got to be fed. But how? Hay, straw, whatever, low weight, high volume, must be brought in to the cities from many miles away: it is seasonal so you need warehousing. Yet it is hard to find either pictures of rail-based foddering (if that is a word) operations - or indeed of road operations: there are scenes of urban areas crammed with horse-drawn traffic, both passenger and freight, but you don't often see cartloads of hay or the equivalent in urban settings - being delivered for example to those 'mews' that the posh folks had behind thee West End mansions. Nor do you see on the maps and photographs any obvious facilities at stations.

 

So how did the average urban carthorse or Hackney get its feed? Or the stables in areas such as Newmarket? Was hay/straw baled or loose (which might affect the type of wagon employed). And if it wasn't by rail, then...?

 

I know the Lambton Hetton and Joicey  had vans for 'choppy', the local term for feed for pit ponies, but that was only moving a few miles in a mostly rural area on a private railway. How did all those other nags get their oats?

 

If we knew, strikes me it could be an as yet underexploited traffic to model, for example from your otherwise traffic-light BLT?

Do I recall that in the 1920/30s Lynton & Barnstaple Railway staff cut lineside grass for hay, which, once dry, was transported on sheeted L&B flat bogie wagons? I'm sure I've seen a photo in one of the books. Not sure if this hay was destined for railway use or was sold to the public?

[Compound2632]

Hay-ho! Ordinary opens is the answer:

 

 

Reading Vastern Road yard, c. 1905.

 

Mechanised bailing came in around about the time of the Great War; here's how to load and rope a load of bales:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of Midland Railway Study Centre item 88-GV/119-01, DY10921 or 2]

 

I don't have access to the next photo in the series, DY10923 or 4, which in the register is listed as showing the load sheeted, as it would be for travel.

 

[Fat Controller]

Wasn't this material referred to as 'Provender? There was a large building, known as the Provender Store at Didcot, roughly where the Up car park is. There were also a lot of prefabricated concrete buildings, sometimes referred to as 'Provender Stores', and seemingly present in most ex-GWR yards, and probably elsewhere.

To this day, there is a traffic in baled straw from the cereal-growing regions of the eastern UK to the pastoral regions . I

In recent years, with drier summers, SNCF and other bodies have organised block trains of straw and hay from Eastern and Central France to Limousin and elsewhere. One problem they have encountered is of loads catching fire, normally due to spontaneous combustion.

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Wasn't this material referred to as 'Provender? There was a large building, known as the Provender Store at Didcot, roughly where the Up car park is. There were also a lot of prefabricated concrete buildings, sometimes referred to as 'Provender Stores', and seemingly present in most ex-GWR yards, and probably elsewhere.

 

The Didcot provender store was a central repository for fodder for the company's horses. As noted above, the Midland had similar facilities at Oakham and also at Ashchurch, seen here c. 1903 with ordinary opens piled high and sheeted:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre item 28633.]

 

I suppose other companies had similar facilities.

 

The question of fodder for horses generally is a separate question.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Compound2632

[eastglosmog]

Thames barges carried a good deal hay for London, see here:https://isleofdogslife.wordpress.com/2019/09/26/hay-barges-on-the-thames/

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Wasn't this material referred to as 'Provender? There was a large building, known as the Provender Store at Didcot, roughly where the Up car park is. There were also a lot of prefabricated concrete buildings, sometimes referred to as 'Provender Stores', and seemingly present in most ex-GWR yards, and probably elsewhere.

To this day, there is a traffic in baled straw from the cereal-growing regions of the eastern UK to the pastoral regions . I

In recent years, with drier summers, SNCF and other bodies have organised block trains of straw and hay from Eastern and Central France to Limousin and elsewhere. One problem they have encountered is of loads catching fire, normally due to spontaneous combustion.

Straw, in particular,  is very prone to spontaneous combustion if it is not stored properly with air allowed to get into the rick/stack through the bottom and sides.  There are old country stories of badly built ricks catching fire and apparently in some places it was a regular practice to push a long ironl rod into a rick then withdraw it to see how hot it had got.

[Steamport Southport]

Don't forget the GWR provender wagons. Basically a ten plank wagon that looks a bit like a coke wagon. Don't go mad with them though as ISTR there was only 12 of them.

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/procoopopens.html

 

With the usual caveat about not ordering them from Coopercraft. Pretty easy to find on places like eBay though.

 

 

Jason

Edited May 29, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Don't forget the GWR provender wagons. [...] Don't go mad with them though as ISTR there was only 12 of them.

 

The Coopercraft kit only resembled the second batch of six, and then not very exactly...

 

How many of the Coopercraft kit were produced? 

 

[MyRule1]

In his self published local history book "Whitlock Brothers" about the company of that name who were based in Great Yeldham on the Colne valley Railway, Adrian Corder-Birch, covers this traffic.

 

By 1901 there were over 100 tons of chaff being sent to London each week. The stress that this volume of traffic, along with the loads from the brickworks along the line led to complains that the CVR was unable to handle al the traffic that was on offer. This lack of capacity was the reason for support from industries along the CVR for the Central Essex light railway.

 

The release of so many ex WD lorries onto the market post WW1 meant a decline in both the market for fodder in London, the result of which was the traffic ceased completely by 1932.

[Compound2632]

26 minutes ago, MyRule1 said:

The release of so many ex WD lorries onto the market post WW1 meant a decline in both the market for fodder in London, the result of which was the traffic ceased completely by 1932.

 

Comparing the rise in the number of motor vehicles owned by the Midland Railway from 1917 onwards (many of which were electric and most of which were used in London) with the number of horses for cartage, it is apparent that one motor vehicle replaced ten horses.

[Tom Burnham]

On 28/05/2022 at 15:34, Paul H Vigor said:

Do I recall that in the 1920/30s Lynton & Barnstaple Railway staff cut lineside grass for hay, which, once dry, was transported on sheeted L&B flat bogie wagons? I'm sure I've seen a photo in one of the books. Not sure if this hay was destined for railway use or was sold to the public?

I believe that was not unusual. I recall seeing a SE&CR committee minute dividing up the lineside hay crop (which ran to hundreds of tons a year) between the SER and LC&DR for accounting purposes. And I've seen newspaper adverts inviting tenders to buy the Kent & East Sussex hay crop, in stacks at Rolvenden and Frittenden Road, in the early 1900s.

[eastglosmog]

13 hours ago, MyRule1 said:

...........

 

The release of so many ex WD lorries onto the market post WW1 meant a decline in both the market for fodder in London, the result of which was the traffic ceased completely by 1932.

It was the death of the barge traffic as well, I believe the last hay barge from Essex to London was about 1938.