Stone blocks and iron rails in Yorkshire

[Ruston]

I thought I'd post this in here rather than in the prototype section as it's probably only of interest to a minority...

 

A few years ago I managed to find a copy of Stone Block and Iron Rails by Bertram Baxter (David & Charles, 1966) and developed an interest in early railways. On my travels I collected a couple of relics...

 

Sleeper block showing cut out for a cast iron chair, the holes for the wooden plugs to hold the chair and the groove for the fish-bellied cast iron rails.

 

This stone sleeper block is from the Flockton Tramway, which was one of the earliest railways in Yorkshire. Opened sometime between 1772-75 as a horse-worked waggonway using wooden rails. It is believed that it later used tramplates and later still cast iron edge rails. The lower section survived long enough to be converted to the usual type of rail with locomotive haulage. The gauge (at least with normal rails and locomotive haulage) was 3ft. 9ins.

 

The line served collieries at Flockton and Dial Wood, as well as other mines (ironstone) and coke ovens at Middle Shitlington (now Middlestown), West Riding. Several features are extant, including a tunnel and a viaduct! The line terminated at staithes on the Calder & Hebble Navigation at Horbury Bridge. The line and collieries closed after the strike of 1893.

 

This one is of similar size but appears to have been re-used by having a portion flattened to take a chair mounted at 90 degrees to the original.

 

This block was found at the side of a dirt track near Lofthouse. I am unsure of the railway that it came from but it most likely served a colliery and fed into the River Calder somewhere around the Stanley/Bottom Boat area. It may have had some connection with the Lake Lock Railroad?

 

I plan to get out and get some photos of what remains of these lines and other early (pre-locomotive) railways.

 

 

 

 

[sir douglas]

there was also a waggon way at wentbridge, i only found out about this when i was spent some time looking around the new wakefield one, museum and it's library, there was a little book about it.

[class"66"]

Interesting read...

[Ruston]

there was also a waggon way at wentbridge, i only found out about this when i was spent some time looking around the new wakefield one, museum and it's library, there was a little book about it.

I think I know the book you mean. I may have a copy somewhere.

 

There was also the Silkstone Tramway, which ran from the Barnsley canal to collieries around Silkstone. There's quite a bit of that can still be seen at both ends and a lot of the trackbed can be walked. In fact there's a replica waggon and track in the main street, at the junction of the A628.

 

There were loads more, some quite short, and probably without names, that ran from collieries on both sides of the Calder & Hebble Navigation, around the Ravensthorpe/Thornhill/Horbury area. I once looked at an old map in Wakefield library and it showed about a dozen of them!

[sir douglas]

there was also the smithson waggonway from a colliery at low Laithes to Thornes Wharf, a tiny bit still survived into the very late 1800's as a quarry line from Thornes Wharf to just before Denby Dale Road and as part of the L&Y's System on Thornes wharf via a waggon lift up to the main line, i have a Godfrey Collection map of that area.

[Ruston]

Do you have the book about that line? Wakefield's First Railway and it's Collieries by John Goodchild. There was also Fentons waggonway that ran from the Low Laithes area into Wakefield. There are a number of stone blocks that can still be seen lying in the beck at Low Laithes. About 10 years ago the farmer down there was digging a trench for a water pipe and found several stone blocks in situ, some with cast iron rails too. I tried to buy them but he didn't want to know...

[sir douglas]

No, i dont have that book, and no i didnt know about the fenton line

[RJL]

A little off topic but here are some photos over the border in Derbyshire were the Butterley company had a network of trackways leading from mines and quarries  to the canal network. some evidence of this is still left including the old stone sets the iron rail sat on. After the old trackway was replaced with more modern rail and sleeper the stone blocks found there way in to buildings.

[Taccyman]

Just reading Early Wooden Railways and on checking a reference discovered this posting. I found it very interesting as when I was a child in the mid 50s, I used to visit my Great Grandmother who lived at Lawns Villa, Lawns Lane, Carr Gate. This was a farm, which is now covered by the M1, M62 and massive industrial estate. The access to the farm that we used was along Lawns Lane from the A650. A more rutted and potholed lane would be hard to imagine.

 

When there I was often told to go and play and was intrigued by the names used. The area in question is officially known as Grandstand Lane (the origin of that name is interesting in itself) but it was more often referred to by my Great Grandmother and Aunts as either the Waggon Road, or the Coal Road!

 

While the area was then farmed or market gardened (rhubarb), there was evidence of coal extraction in some of the mounded uncultivated parts.

 

The 'Coal Road' ran directly from in front of the farm, arrow straight, to Outwood, and was less rutted than Lawns Lane. Perhaps this was due to a better substructure. The other main difference that I also remember is that in parts this lane had. what would these days be called. a pavement running down one side. This was formed from large and thick stone slabs, perhaps about 3 ft. square. I don't recall seeing any 'stone rail blocks' but as a 6 or 7 year old I would not have recognised them as such.

 

I hope this may be of interest.

 

Tom Cockeram, (now resident in France)

 

[tractionman]

Hi Tom,

 

Sounds intriguing! The National Library of Scotland (NLS) has historic Ordnance Survey six-inch maps online and looking at these it seems the alignment of Grandstand Lane is connected with a tramway running through Outwood to the east:

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=53.7154&lon=-1.5124&layers=171

 

The tramway is labelled as such on the map and runs through to Stanley Ferry. From the map, it looks like there was an earlier(?) alignment further north that went from Lofthouse Gate to Lake Lock, the alignment suggested by the long field boundary and earthworks just south of Canal Hill – a fascinating industrial landscape.

 

Change the transparency of the OS map using the slider tool and you can compare the historic map with modern aerial imagery and doing this reveals that the tramway route to Stanley Ferry is still visible as parallel hedgerows – would repay some local fieldwork!

 

The GNR (West Yorkshire Railway) is shown cutting across the Grandstand Lane route suggesting it was out of use by time the GNR here was built?

 

The NLS online maps is great for researching these early railways.

 

Cheers,

 

Keith 

[roythebus]

There's some stone setts from the Surrey Iron Railway in the wall of the former Youngs Brewery at Wandsworth. 

[figworthy]

Hi Tom,

 

Sounds intriguing! The National Library of Scotland (NLS) has historic Ordnance Survey six-inch maps online and looking at these it seems the alignment of Grandstand Lane is connected with a tramway running through Outwood to the east:

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=53.7154&lon=-1.5124&layers=171

 

The tramway is labelled as such on the map and runs through to Stanley Ferry. From the map, it looks like there was an earlier(?) alignment further north that went from Lofthouse Gate to Lake Lock, the alignment suggested by the long field boundary and earthworks just south of Canal Hill – a fascinating industrial landscape.

 

Change the transparency of the OS map using the slider tool and you can compare the historic map with modern aerial imagery and doing this reveals that the tramway route to Stanley Ferry is still visible as parallel hedgerows – would repay some local fieldwork!

 

The GNR (West Yorkshire Railway) is shown cutting across the Grandstand Lane route suggesting it was out of use by time the GNR here was built?

 

The NLS online maps is great for researching these early railways.

 

Cheers,

 

Keith 

 

 

I've just been doing a bit of reading up on this.  I can recommend Charles Hadfield's Canals of Yorkshire and North East England (volume 1) and Priestley's Navigable RIvers and Canals (published in 1831).

 

The route from Lofthouse Gate to Stanley Ferry was authorised under an act of 1828 which authorised the Aire & Calder Navigation company to improve its route from Castleford to Wakefield (basically to build the long canal section that is in use today).

 

The route to Lake Lock (called the Lake Lock Railroad) ran past Lofthouse Gate to East Ardsley, and is much older, there is a reference suggesting that it goes back to the 1780s, it was at some point extended to Bottom Boat.  This was built without parliamentary approval.  There was also a near parallel route to Bottom Boat (called Fenton's) was built in the 1820s. 

 

 

Adrian

[sir douglas]

for subjects like this, anything by John Goodchild is a must read as well

 

i recently attended a talk on these lines by John, he is one of the most knowledgeable on wagonways around wakefield

 

such as this pdf of the Flockton wagonway and the Denby Grange line (from caphouse to crigglestone)

flockton.pdf