Railways of the North Pennines E-Book

Dr Tom Bell

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 507

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This illustrated history describes how the two pioneering railways of northern England, the Stockton and Darlington and Newcastle and Carlisle railways, developed from unsuccessful canal proposals and how they, with the ill-fated Stanhope and Tyne Railway, initiated the development of the railway system that served the North Pennine Orefield. It reveals the public and private railways, as well as proposed lines, and the recovery and extensions of the Stockton and Darlington Railway until the North Eastern Railway took over in the early 1860s. Dr Tom Bell's impressive research also explores the subsequent slow but continuous decline as the minerals became exhausted, to the situation today when all that is left are three different tourist lines, one of which is trying to revive the mineral traffic.

Leseprobe

The History Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Marc Fitch Fund

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Foreword by Andrew Scott CBE, Former Director of NRM

Preface

1. Introduction

2. Canal Proposals, Roads and the Early Railways

3. The Railway Mania in the North Pennines

4. The Main Line of the Proposed Wear Valley Extension Railway of 1845

5. The 1845 Proposals for the Allen Valley

6. The Alston Branch of the N&CR

7. Amalgamation and Financial Restructuring Within the Stockton and Darlington Group of Railways

8. Improvements to the Wear and Derwent Junction Railway

9. Rookhope, Stanhope and Westgate

10. The Hexham and Allendale Railway

11. Barnard Castle and the Tees Valley Railway

12. The Cumberland and Cleveland Junction Railway

13. The Final Attempts to Reach Alston from the Valleys of the Tees and Wear Including the Wear Valley Extension Railway of 1892

14. The Long Decline

15. The Tourist Railways

APPENDIX A Relationship of Metric to Imperial Units

Appendix B Railway Companies

References

Plates

Copyright

FOREWORD

The North Pennine dales are a very special place – one the emptiest places in England, apparently on the road to nowhere, a land of high fells, wide and wild valleys where farming is utterly at the margin.

It is a land where population would have been negligible had it not been for the rocks and minerals for which the area has become well known. Quarries yielded stone – limestone, sandstone and hard whimstone for road works. But igneous activity had also introduced mineral-rich magma, cooling in cracks forced through the rocks and a rich source of important metals and other chemicals. Mining and quarrying became important industries.

As a teenager from the English midlands, I made a pilgrimage with my family to discover where my grandfather had been born, somewhere so different from the modern city where I had been brought up that I have never forgotten that first visit. The place was Harwood in Upper Teesdale, about as wild and remote as one can get in England. My grandparent’s family had been farmers and lead miners nearly 2,000ft up in some of the most inhospitable conditions that England has to offer. Life was hard and, by the early twentieth century, it was obvious that the future held little hope, so they emigrated – to Frinton on Sea – but that, as they say, is another story. Tom Bell’s fastidious research, published here for the first time, opens the door for me to new facets of my family’s history.

For some of the area, the coming of the railway added impetus to quarrying and mining and led to a hundred years of intense economic activity. In the more remote parts, the twin challenges of landscape and economics meant that the railway did not materialise. Transport costs remained high and mining remained a marginal industry. Dr Bell has uncovered the story of the railways that were prepared to confront challenges of the 2,000ft high passes and deep valleys. He paints a picture of what might have been and, in so doing, helps our understanding of the achievements of the miners of the north Pennines and of the limitations that have left this country so lonely today. For those who love this part of the world and the faint traces of its fascinating industria history that remain, he has added a new dimension to the story.

Andrew Scott CBE,

Former Director, National Raillway Museum

PREFACE

The idea for a book outlining the history of the various railway proposals in the North Pennines arose during a study of the nineteenth-century documents relating to the planning, building and later proposals to extend the Alston branch of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway (N&CR). The majority of people with an interest in railways will have heard of the Alston branch and most of these, as well as many others, will be familiar with its current reincarnation as the narrow-gauge South Tynedale Railway. Similarly, the Wearhead branch is also well known at the time of writing, especially in preservation circles, in its various recent reincarnations as the Weardale Railway. The Middleton-in-Teesdale and Allendale branches, both of which started life as totally independent concerns, are rather less well known, while knowledge of the Stanhope and Tyne, the Wear and Derwent Junction, and Weardale Iron and Coal Company Railways is even more restricted, especially in the case of the latter which was never a public railway and which therefore rarely appears on the various railway maps depicting the pre-grouping era. Those interested in the development of the British railway network will probably have heard of proposals to connect the valleys of the South Tyne and Wear and possibly also the South Tyne and Tees, while the more serious student will be able to name these schemes as the Wear Valley Extension Railway (of 1845) and the Cumberland and Cleveland Junction Railway. What is perhaps less well understood is that these lines were not simply speculative proposals of the Railway Mania, or later, but were genuine proposals, whose supporters were active for over half a century, with the second line coming very close to actually being built.

My interest in railways, and my connection with the North Pennines, extends over all of my almost eighty years. Until I was seven, we lived in the East Allen Valley, a mile north of Allenheads, where I was fortunate to see the last, decaying years of the local lead industry. During that period I was taken, by my father, to Allendale station to collect parcels, although I do not remember ever seeing a train at that rather inconvenient station. In my teens, I cycled over most of the North Pennines, seeing the inclines at Hallbankgate and Stanhope in action, while passenger trains at the railheads of Alston, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Tow Law and Wearhead were all familiar. I especially remember the station at Alston, with its overall roof, which made it an ideal place to eat one’s sandwiches in inclement weather. After twenty years away from the North Pennines, I returned with my family, moving into Alston the weekend the branch closed. This research started three years later, when I produced a small display for the developing South Tynedale Railway Preservation Society. Since that time I have discovered the true extent of the vast efforts made to provide rail connections over the roof of England. I would not claim to have unearthed every piece of relevant information, but certainly there is a much greater quantity than has previously been reported, and if any person reading this history knows of more, I shall be more than happy to hear of it.

Earlier, and incomplete, versions of chapters in this book were written as a series of articles for theNorth Eastern Express, and I am grateful to the then editor, John Richardson, for permission to re-use the material. Although I have received considerable assistance from many individuals in the course of this research, I am solely responsible for the assembly of the information. I have tried to provide as unbiased and complete an account as possible, but the interpretations are my own, and I can blame no one but myself for any errors or omissions. I am aware that others would almost certainly place greater emphasis on different aspects of the story, but I have tried to place the history of the railway plans in the context of contemporary events. For most of the lines I have followed a chronological order, although the final improvements to the Wear and Derwent Junction line occurred after the building of both the Hexham and Allendale and the Tees Valley railways. In addition, I have ventured into the world of ‘might-have-been’, to see what could have resulted if there had been some relatively minor variations in the decisions taken or the moneys available. From these considerations, I have formed the view that, had the Wear Valley Extension Railway proceeded in 1845, it almost certainly would have obtained its act and been built to become part of one the main lines between London and Glasgow, having a profound effect on the country through which it passed. None of the later planned extensions would have had the same effect, although the future of the railway in Alston might have been different.

I have restricted my account to those standard-gauge railways which were built either as fully authorised public railways, or were private railways operated in a similar manner to a normal public railway, plus those proposed lines for which surveys were carried out, usually with the production of detailed plans. Standard-gauge lines built to serve mines or quarries, but which did not provide a public service for the local population, have been mentioned only briefly in connection with the traffic they contributed, while the story of the various standard- and narrow-gauge systems serving local industries I have left to other authors. For me this has been a labour of love, and I hope that those who read it will find it as fascinating as I found the original research.

The illustrations are a mixture of pictures of the original plans of the railways discussed, contemporary photographs taken by a range of photographers when the railways were open for commercial traffic, or had only recently been closed, and a selection of modern views showing the remains of the railways in the late twentieth or early twenty-first centuries, or where a line that was never built would have passed. The first and last series were taken by the author with the source of the original plans given for each picture. The copyright holder of each of the contemporary pictures is given in the caption and the author is most grateful to the various copyright holders giving permission for the publication of their photographs. Where there is no name attached to a photograph the picture was taken by the author.

The production of this history would have been impossible without the assistance of the staffs of the Record Offices and Archives Services of Cumbria (especially the Carlisle office), Durham, Northumberland, North Riding of Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear; The National Archives; the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Carlisle City Library, Newcastle City Library, Darlington Public Library, Durham City Library, the Library of the University of Durham; the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum. In particular, I wish to thank the editor and staff of theHexham Courant, who allowed me to spend many Fridays searching through their bound collection of back copies. This is a newspaper which does not feature often in railway literature, yet, from its first publication in 1864, it has proved to be a major source of new information. It seems invidious to single out individuals, but Bob Rennison of the Newcomen Society provided much needed assistance in resolving the convoluted history of the actual building of the Alston branch, and was the inspiration for the paper we jointly wrote on the subject, while Alan Blackburn, Head of Engineering on the South Tynedale Railway, John Crompton of Norpex, Larry Wilson of Allenheads and the Kearton family of Alston have provided information which was otherwise unavailable. I should also like to thank Mike Ryan and Jim Harper, whom I met through the South Tynedale Railway, for reading the manuscript and making constructive comments, particularly by questioning the accuracy of some of the details quoted from the plans. For those who may also wonder, such figures as 1 in 404.06, 2247¼and 128.78 are taken directly from the original plans! Finally I must thank my long-suffering wife who, for over twenty years, has not only put up with my travels over the North of England, and beyond, in search of information, but who has also read the manuscript and improved the language.

Because of the large number of publications referred to in the text, mostly original and contemporary, they have been placed at the end of the text in order of the date of publication and numbered from 1 (the earliest – 1767) to 839 (the latest – 2014). In the text each reference is shown by a superscript number which is the same as the number in the reference list.

1

INTRODUCTION

While the most northerly counties of England will always be known as the birthplace of the modern railway system, they also have the less enviable distinction of being the only major area of the British Isles whose natural waterways were neither developed to provide safe, non-tidal, inland trading routes, nor connected by a network of navigable canals. There was no shortage of proposals for river improvements and canals but, for a variety of reasons, very little came of these efforts. All that the innumerable surveys and countless meetings managed to achieve was the construction of a small number of completely separate canals, one in the east and three in the west, together with the improvement of navigation over the tidal stretches of the major rivers in the east. Even much of the latter work did not occur until after the establishment of the basic railway network. It was only the northern extension of the Lancaster Canal to Kendal which came close to being connected to the main English inland waterway network and although the Millennium Fund financed a connection known as the Ribble Link it has no bearing on this history, while the short Carlisle Canal, and the even shorter Ulverston Canal, simply connected the towns of their titles to the sea.

At the time when canal networks were being established further south and in Scotland, the coal owners of north-east England were building primitive waggonways to take the output from their collieries to staithes near the river mouths for onward shipping.738These early and distinctly rudimentary railways were not only relatively short, but were used solely by the colliery owners for the carriage of their coal to the river staithes and sometimes, in the reverse direction, to transport materials required in their mines. However, on 19 April 1821 the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) Company was authorised by an Act of Parliament to construct a public railway, which allowed the Company to carry all manner of goods in addition to coal.31A second act, granted on 23 May 1823, authorised the railway not only to carry passengers, but also to use steam locomotives.34The S&DR is generally recognised as the forerunner of the railway system as we know it today, and the original proposals developed out of one of the early, but unsuccessful, canal schemes. The second of the pioneering public railways in northern England also started life as a waterway scheme, being the only major canal proposal in the northern counties which came anywhere near to fruition. The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway (N&CR) was authorised on 22 May 1829 to connect the river Tyne at Newcastle with the canal basin in Carlisle.41The line was opened in sections between 1834 and 1839, by which time the S&DR had started its expansion from the Auckland coalfield into the upper valleys of the North Pennines.

In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the transport of lead ore from the numerous mines in the North Pennines had attracted the attention of the promoters of the unsuccessful Newcastle and Maryport Canal, and this potentially rich traffic continued to entice the railway builders half a century later. Therefore, it is no surprise to find, in 1845, both the N&CR and the Wear Valley Railway (WVR), which was a subsidiary of the S&DR, seeking parliamentary approval for a railway to serve the mines of Allendale and Alston Moor. In the end, it was the Newcastle Company which obtained its Act of Parliament for a line to Alston Moor on 26 August 1846,249while three years later a second act was granted, on 13 July 1849, allowing the company to make major alterations to the route.317In 1871, nineteen years after the railway finally reached Alston, the Cumberland and Cleveland Junction Railway (C&CJR) Company was promoted to build a line from Alston to the northern terminus of the Tees Valley Railway (TVR) at Middleton-in-Teesdale. Despite further major efforts a decade later, this railway also failed to materialise. Several further attempts to revive the westward extension of the WVR, which would have continued the iron road from the valley of the river Wear through the Pennines to Alston Moor, also failed.

If all the railways surveyed between 1845 and 1871, and for which plans were deposited with the local Justices of the Peace, had actually been built, Alston would have become the focal point of a group of lines serving the entire North Pennine ore-field. Railways would have radiated from Alston in almost every direction as shown on the enclosed maps (Figure 1).

First, a line would have run northwards for 8 miles to Lambley where it would have divided. One branch would have continued down the South Tyne Valley to join the N&CR at Haltwhistle. Another would have turned west and joined the same railway near Brampton, in the valley of the River Irthing, with the Eden Valley and Carlisle close to hand. A second line would have run eastwards, passing through the mining community of Nenthead before tunnelling under Killhope Fell into Weardale, where two branches were to leave before it made an end-on junction with the Wear Valley section of the S&DR. The first branch would have crossed the mountain divide into Allendale where it would later have been joined by the Hexham and Allendale Railway (H&AR), while the second was to connect with the former Stanhope and Tyne section of the S&DR. The third major line would have run southwards over the watershed dividing South Tynedale from Teesdale to connect Alston with the Middleton-in-Teesdale Railway. Further east, a line was proposed to connect Newcastle with the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway, making the connected route into a main line from Merseyside to Newcastle.

The promoters of these unsuccessful canal and railway schemes have left behind a mountain of plans, letters, reports and other papers, the very earliest of which show how little was known of the topography of the more remote parts of Great Britain only a little over 200 years ago, and how the pioneering canal and railway engineers sought to overcome their difficulties. Not only do these documents allow one to visualise the railway network that was originally planned but they also shed considerable light on the economics and local politics of the area.

This history is not intended to be a fully comprehensive account of all the railways of the North Pennines, but mainly to demonstrate the network of railways that could have developed to connect Alston Moor with the neighbouring centres of commerce and industry. In order to place the unsuccessful lines in context, it is necessary to describe those that were actually built, together with the relationship between them and the routes which failed to materialise, even some which would have come nowhere near Alston Moor, including those well to the south of the area normally known as the North Pennines, and the line that would have given the London and North Western Railway direct access to Newcastle.422

The original railway plans were prepared in great detail, making it relatively easy to follow the proposed routes on modern maps, thereby showing their relationships to the road and river systems. The original plans were prepared by different surveyors using a variety of scales, and the overall map which has been prepared for this work has been drawn from these surveys. The railways shown on this map include all those for which detailed plans have been found, including all those which were actually built. In addition to the routes to be followed, these plans also give details of the expected gradients, the sizes and positions of cuttings and embankments, the heights and lengths of any viaducts and the more important bridges, including road crossings and, in some cases, the proposed sites for stations. No scales are shown on any of the maps reproduced from original plans as the size of each illustration has been determined by a combination of the space available and what is intended to be illustrated. However, on most of the original plans the distance is marked on the surveyed line of each railway in miles and furlongs, usually as a*for miles and a bar+across the line of the route for furlongs.

All the heights, widths and distances on the original plans are given in the Imperial units of inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs and miles. After careful consideration, it has been decided to give all the figures in the Imperial units used throughout the nineteenth century, but with the metric equivalents following in brackets. The relationship of the Imperial units with each other, and with their metric equivalents, is given in Appendix A. In general, place names have been given their current spelling throughout this work.

Six maps showing all the public and major private standard-gauge railways built in the North Pennines, plus those railways for which plans were prepared and submitted to Parliament, but which were either authorised and not built, or were never authorised.

Figure 1a Railways in the south-east section of the North Pennines.

The scale of these six maps is approximately 1 in 180,000.

Figure 1b Railways in the north-east section of the North Pennines.

The key to the railways shown on these six maps is as follows:

represents public railways built, either with initial parliamentary authorisation, or with later parliamentary approval

railways which were authorised by parliament but not built

private railways built and operated without any parliamentary authorisation

railways for which plans were produced, but which were not authorised by parliament

sections of planned railways following the same route, one of which was authorised by Parliament but not built and the other not authorised

Figure 1c Railways in the south-central section of the North Pennines.

Figure 1d Railways in the north-central section of the North Pennines.

Figure 1e Railways in the south-west section of the North Pennines.

Figure 1f Railways in the north-west section of the North Pennines.

Note– Where a railway built or proposed that followed the same general route of other, usually earlier, proposals that were not authorised or not built, only major divergences between the routes are shown.

Most of the documents referred to are to be found in the local record offices and libraries, and fall into a range of different categories. For this work the most important are the plans which were deposited, mainly between 1844 and 1871, with the local Justices of the Peace in compliance with parliamentary procedures. The majority have been preserved in excellent order and are available for study in the record offices of Cumbria, Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear. Plans for the earlier canal schemes are rather fewer in number, but this lack is more than made up for by the wealth of reports prepared by the various engineers commissioned by the different promoters. These can also be found scattered throughout the record offices and libraries in northern England, but the most important are the bound collections in the library of the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Central Library of the City of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The record offices also house collections of personal papers, and those in the Cumbria Record Office in Carlisle and the Durham Record Office have provided extensive information. Finally, there is a wealth of information in the pages of the contemporary newspapers, collections of which are to be found in both the libraries and record offices, as well as in the newspaper offices themselves.

As this account is intended to be read by anyone who has an interest in the subject, the authors and titles of the various pamphlets, letters, etc., have not been included in the main body of the text, apart from the names of those who actually carried out the surveys, or who played a major role in the individual projects. Actual quotations from these documents are indicated by quotation marks, while small superscript numbers indicate the references, details of which are given in a separate section at the end of the text. Most of the acts of Parliament referred to have been studied in detail, while the location of the copies quoted are given in the reference list. The modern photographs have been taken to indicate where some of the more interesting features of the unbuilt railways would have occurred, and to attempt to show the scale of the works that would have been required to carry the iron road through the highest parts of the North Pennines, as well as representative views of the remains of the lines actually built. Appendix B gives the names and commonly used abbreviations of all the railways mentioned in this history. For those who wish to trace the courses of the proposed, or abandoned, railways on the ground, this history should be used in conjunction with modern large-scale Ordnance Survey maps. Although it is possible to follow the routes on the 1:50,000 Landranger Series, the 1:25,000 Explorer and Outdoor Leisure Series provide a much clearer picture of the land through which the lines were planned to pass.

At the time of writing, 2013, the following are the relevant numbers of the 1:25,000 series required to follow each of the proposed railways:

• Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, Nenthead branch of 1845 and Alston branch of 1849 – Explorer OL31 and OL43.

• Newcastle & Carlisle Railway, Allenheads branch proposals – Explorer OL31 and OL43.

• Bishop Auckland and Weardale, and Wear Valley railways – Explorer 305.

• Wear Valley Extension Railway of 1845, main line – Explorer OL31 and OL43.

• Wear Valley Extension Railway of 1845, Allendale branch – Explorer OL31 and OL43.

• Wear and Derwent Junction, and Weardale Iron Company railways – Explorer 305 and 307.

• Hexham and Allendale Railway – Explorer OL43.

• Darlington and Barnard Castle, and South Durham and Lancashire Union railways – Explorer 304.

• Cumberland and Cleveland Junction Railway – Explorer OL31 and OL43.

• Wear Valley Extension Railway of 1892 – Explorer OL31.

2

CANAL PROPOSALS, ROADS AND THE EARLY RAILWAYS

In the second half of the eighteenth century, proposals were put forward for two canals which would have tapped the North Pennines ore-field and, although neither was built, both eventually resulted in the construction of the railways which became the main players in the provision of transport in the area. The first ideas for a canal which would have reached the edge of the North Pennines were discussed in Darlington during October 1767760and a firm proposal was made at a meeting held on 9 November 1767.1,2At a further meeting, held at the Post House in Darlington on 1 December 1767, a committee was set up to carry the proposal forward.3James Brindley was asked to provide a surveyor to investigate a suitable line for a canal to extend the navigation of the river Tees. On 19 September 1768 Robert Whitworth was sent to survey the area towards the inland coalfield and by 24 October 1768 he had completed his survey for a canal just under 27 miles in length,3starting at the river Tees in Stockton and rising 328ft (100m) to terminate beside the turnpike road near Winston, a point which was within easy access of the coalfield (p. 22). The cost of constructing the canal and three short branches was estimated at £63,722 by James Brindley and Robert Whitworth, who reported back to the committee on 19 July 1769,760but nothing further was done at the time.

The idea of a canal from Winston to Stockton was revived in the 1790s, but this time with two branches, one running northwards to join the proposed Durham Canal and the second running south from Croft Bridge on the river Tees to Boroughbridge on the river Ure. Ralph Dodd painted a bright picture for this canal in a report in 1796.761Again nothing came of these proposals, but in 1808 an act was obtained to improve the navigation of the river Tees between Stockton and the sea, including the cutting of a canal through a neck of land near Portrack.24The improvements were completed in 1810 and at a dinner to celebrate the opening of the ‘New Cut’ in Stockton on 18 September 1810 a committee was formed to ‘inquire into the practicability and advantage of a railway or canal from Stockton, by Darlington and Winston’.25,762Further canal proposals were made after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and in 1818 plans were produced and a bill presented to Parliament for a canal running from Stockton to Fighting Cocks with a railway continuing to the coalfield.27The bill failed and later in 1818 George Overton was asked to make a survey for a railway. On 13 November 1818, a meeting was held in Darlington Town Hall which decided in favour of a railway,29,739and thus the Stockton and Darlington Railway was born.

Robert Whitworth’s plan for a canal from Stockton to Winston. Reproduced from theGentleman’s Magazine, August 1772, by permission of Cumbria County Council, Library Services, Carlisle Group HQ.

By the last decade of the eighteenth century, greater quantities of lead were being extracted from the North Pennine ore-field than from any other region in the world, and the town of Alston had become firmly established as the commercial centre of the most important of the mining areas. It was at this time that a group of citizens of Newcastle-upon-Tyne invited Ralph Dodd ‘to make superficially a survey’ to determine whether it would be practical to build a canal between ‘the East and the West Sea’.5,6

Although Dodd had just completed a survey for the River Wear Commissioners, and the contemporary North of England press was fulsome with its praise, his experience and abilities as a canal engineer were exceedingly limited.744At public meetings held in Newcastle on 1 November and 15 November 1794,7,8Dodd indicated that his superficial survey had shown that a canal through Hexham and Carlisle was practical, and he was then asked to make a detailed survey of the route and its probable cost. In addition to the main line, Dodd suggested that several branches would be beneficial, giving as an example ‘one that would go nearly to Alston Moor’ to accommodate the lead traffic.7

At a meeting held in Carlisle on 29 November 1794to recruit subscribers in Cumberland to the survey for the canal,9Dodd’s appointment as engineer was confirmed, yet on 27 December the Northumberland Committee decided to request William Chapman, a much more experienced canal engineer, ‘to report on the measures to be attended to in the Survey of a line of Navigation, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Irish Channel’.10Exactly a week later the Cumberland Committee not only confirmed Chapman’s appointment but also the request of the Northumberland Committee that both he and Dodd deliver their reports to a joint meeting of the Northumberland and Cumberland Committees to be held at Hexham on 12 January.11Only Chapman delivered his report, and the meeting authorised its publication and asked two other experienced canal engineers, Messrs Jessop and Whitworth, to join with Chapman ‘to examine and report their opinion of the best line for a navigation from the River Tyne to the Irish Channel by Hexham and Carlisle…’.12In the event, Jessop and Whitworth left Chapman to carry out the actual survey on his own, making their comments later in the light of his detailed report.

Some of the difficulties encountered by the canal and early railway engineers are apparent in the way in which Chapman had to discard any idea of a branch canal to Alston following his first accurate survey of the region. This is in complete contrast to the situation which existed in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the engineer undertaking the survey for the Cumberland and Cleveland Junction Railway was able to use the first edition of the one-inch Ordnance Survey Map when he prepared his plans in 1871.

In his first report of 5 January 1795, Chapman envisaged a broad canal climbing up the South Tyne Valley from Newcastle to Haltwhistle and then following the river Tipalt to a summit on ‘the flat ground between the deep Vale of Glenwhelt and the River Irthing’.13Chapman expected that it would be possible to build a branch from Haltwhistle into the North Pennines to tap the lead traffic, which he estimated was over 11,000 tons per year. He believed that a small-scale canal could leave the Glenwhelt summit level and follow the west bank of the South Tyne, without requiring any locks, as far as Knaresdale, or possibly even between there and Kirkhaugh. From there he suggested that a high-level canal might be built to run generally eastwards and southwards to penetrate ‘the valleys of the lead country’. Chapman proposed that this canal should be on one level, with the rise from the main branch to be the minimum that would allow the canal to reach the lead mines. In his view, the country was not suitable for the construction of a canal on the same scale as the main line, which he believed should be able to take boats carrying 50 tons. It should be noted that the dimensions he suggested are similar to those still to be found on the unmodernized waterways in Yorkshire.743

For the lead mine canal Chapman stated that the width and length of the boats for this branch should be half that of those on the main line, so that four small boats could be taken together along the main line where they would be able to pass through the locks roped together. He suggested that the canal to the lead mines should be built by the parties involved in the lead industry and calculated that as it would cost less than half of one (old) penny per ton-mile (about 0.2p) to haul the lead, the circuitous nature of such a canal would not be a disadvantage.

Chapman ended his first report with a postscript in which he stated that he had been informed of a pass between the rivers South Tyne and Eden, to the south of Glenwhelt, but by 10 July 1795 he had made a detailed survey of several routes between the Tyne and Irthing and concluded that the lowest summit lay at Glenwhelt in the valley between the rivers Tipalt and Irthing.15This summit level was 55ft (16.8m) above the junction of the rivers South Tyne and Tipalt, whereas the same rise was reached on the South Tyne a little above where it was joined by the Hartley Burn, and therefore he concluded that the plan to make a branch from the summit level towards Alston would not be possible. An undated and unsigned map entitled ‘A sketch map of the intended canal between the East and West Seas’,18with a scale of half an inch to a mile, shows the route of Chapman’s canal from the Haymarket in Newcastle running along the valleys of the rivers Tyne, Irthing and Eden, then through Carlisle to reach the sea at Maryport (pp. 25–27).

With the abandonment of the idea for a canal to Alston, Chapman expected that the lead traffic would join the canal at Haydon Bridge, and suggested that a small canal could be built on a high level from the lead country to terminate between Allen Foot and Langley.15Following his confirmation that the canal would follow the river Tipalt to the valley of the River Irthing, Chapman proposed the construction of two branches from the western end of the summit level, one in the direction of Penrith and lake Ullswater and the other to within ¼ mile (400m) of Kirkhouse, from which point a railway could communicate with the Tindale Fell collieries (p. 27). Following the delivery of the final reports by both Chapman, for a high-level canal between Newcastle and Haydon Bridge,15,16and Dodd, for a low-level canal going only as far as Hexham,14there ensued almost two years of wrangling between those who supported Chapman’s high-level route on the north side of the Tyne and those who supported Dodd’s low-level route (pp. 28–29) on the south side of the river.

During the course of the acrimonious discussions on the relative merits of the two routes, the opinions of several other canal engineers and surveyors were sought. William Jessop supported Chapman’s route,17while John Sutcliffe thought that a low-level route on the south side of the Tyne was better but suggested a totally different alignment to that proposed by Dodd.21In September 1796 plans were deposited for both routes, Chapman for the high-level canal from Newcastle as far as Haydon Bridge,19and Bell for the low-level canal as far as Hexham,20but the only bill presented to Parliament, in 1797, was for the high-level canal.23

The eastern end of the Newcastle to Maryport canal which was to start near the Haymarket in Newcastle. In the Senhouse Papers, Cumbria Archives Service. Reproduced by permission of Mr J. Scott-Plummer.

The central part of the Newcastle to Maryport canal with the initial level section from Newcastle ending at Haydon Bridge and then climbing to the summit at Glenwhelt. Note the similarity of this section to the line of the N&CR. In the Senhouse Papers, Cumbria Archives Service. Reproduced by permission of Mr J. Scott-Plummer.

However, the promoters decided to withdraw the bill during a major parliamentary battle, which the contemporary reports suggest they were probably in the process of winning.22There were several further attempts to promote a canal westwards from Newcastle, with notice being given in 1810 that a bill was to be introduced in the next parliamentary session,26but they all failed due, in part at least, to the economic effects of the Napoleonic Wars.

The western and of the Newcastle to Maryport canal showing the heavily locked section south of Brampton and the relatively level section from Carlisle to Maryport. In the Senhouse Papers, Cumbria Archives Service. Reproduced by permission of Mr J. Scott-Plummer.

Eventually the Carlisle promoters decided to build a short canal from their city to the sea and asked Chapman to draw up a set of suitable plans, which were deposited with Parliament on 29 September 1818.26An act was obtained on 6 April 181930for a canal from Fisher’s Cross or Binnacle, the highest point up the Solway Firth that could readily be reached by sea going ships, to a basin in the City of Carlisle. The Carlisle Canal opened on 12 March 182333and resulted in a final attempt being made to extend the inland navigation to Newcastle. In 1824 Chapman was once again asked to make a survey and then compare the respective advantages of a ship canal or a railway. In his report, Chapman recommended that a railway be built,36and thus the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Company was born. The route Chapman chose for the railway was, in effect, an amalgam of the low-level route to a short distance past Hexham, followed by his high-level route through Haydon Bridge to the basin of the Carlisle Canal.

Less than a year after Chapman suggested that a railway should be built to connect the proposed branch canal to Kirkhouse with the collieries at Tindale Fell,16estimates were prepared for a waggonway from the town of Brampton, through Kirkhouse, to the Earl of Carlisle’s collieries in the hills to the south. Approved by the Earl, this was the start of the private mineral railway system which is usually known by the name of Lord Carlisle’s Railway (LCR),749and this primitive wooden waggonway opened from Brampton to the Talkin collieries, near Forest Head, on 15 April 1799.

The original wooden rails of the waggonway were soon replaced by cast iron, while in 1808 it was decided to use wrought, or malleable, iron rails. These proved to be much less liable to break, and were recorded as showing no apparent change after eight years in constant use. This was the first successful use of wrought iron rails on any railway and undoubtedly influenced the contemporary engineers in their decision to abandon the use of cast iron for rails.

Although this first short line was technically in the North Pennines, it was only the later extensions of the completely rebuilt railway that had a direct influence on the railways reaching into the ore-field at the headwaters of the rivers Allen, Tees, South Tyne and Wear. Much of the information on Lord Carlisle’s Railway, also known as the Brampton Railway, is based on the comprehensive history by the late Brian Webb and David Gordon.748

The eastern section of Dodd’s 1795 plan of a canal from Newcastle to Hexham, showing his route starting at Stella with a possible line across the bulge of land to Lemington. Reproduced by permission of Local Studies and Family History Centre, Newcastle Libraries and Information Service (NLIS).

The western section of Dodd’s 1795 plan of a canal from Newcastle to Hexham, showing the terminus on the eastern side of Hexham. Reproduced by permission of NLIS.

Plan of the proposed turnpike road from Brampton to Alston passing Farlam Hall. The new road (dark) was to follow the original route of Lord Carlisle’s Railway to Hallbankgate. Apart from the section beside plot 324, all of the new road appears to have been built. The illustration on p.30 was taken close to the point marked ‘tunnel’ on the plan. Reproduced by permission of Cumbria Archive Service (CAS).

As the demand for coal and manufactured goods increased, improvements to the transport system of the United Kingdom became ever more necessary. Throughout the eighteenth century networks of canals and turnpike roads were constructed across the kingdom and, during the last third of the century, several acts of Parliament were passed establishing Turnpike trusts to provide roads in the North Pennines.

The principal areas served by these roads were Alston, West Allendale and the upper Wear Valley, but by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century they were in need of upgrading and extension. In 1823, plans were prepared, under the direction of John Loudon McAdam,32for a series of roads centred on Alston which were authorised by an Act of Parliament passed in 1824.37This act authorised major improvements to the roads connecting Alston with the outside world, requiring many miles of new construction, in addition to the upgrading of some sections of existing roads, only some of which had been turnpiked previously (pp. 31 and 32). The roads to be improved included the extension to Brampton of the existing turnpike between Burtreeford and Burnstones, improvements to the Hexham to Alston turnpike and its extension to Penrith, and what was essentially a new road from Alston to Barnard Castle. The trustees of the Hexham to Alston turnpike were also authorised to build a road from their existing turnpike at Cupola Bridge in the West Allen Valley, via Haydon Bridge to Fourstones and Bellingham, with a branch from Fourstones to join the Hexham Turnpike close to the point where the modern Hexham bypass leaves the original route. Today, the roads turnpiked by this act form the basis of much of the main road network in the North Pennines and are the A686 in its entirety; the A689 between Cowshill (Burtree Ford) and Brampton; the B6277 in its entirety, plus the unclassified section from Barnard Castle to the south end of Egglestone Abbey Bridge and the B6294 in its entirety. The section from Cupola Bridge to Haydon Bridge forms part of the A686, the road on to Bellingham is now the B6319 and part of the B6320, and the section from Fourstones to the A69 is unclassified.

Part of the 1799 route of Lord Carlisle’s Railway where it runs alongside the A689 between Farlam and Milton, photographed in October 2007. The overgrown cutting is on the right with the A689 road on the left. The building in the background is part of Farlam Hall Hotel. This section of railway ceased to be used when the new line from Hallbankgate to Brampton was opened on 15 July 1836.

As soon as the whole line of the turnpike road between Cupola Bridge and Haydon Bridge was completed, the act allowed the Trustees, if they so wished, to abandon their existing road from Cupola Bridge to Summerrods at Hexham. Part of this road is now the B6305 in its entirety, and we shall meet the section that was ultimately abandoned when we consider the building of the Hexham and Allendale Railway. The final length of new road was to run from Newshield Bank, on the Summerrods to Alston turnpike, via Randalholm to Slaggyford, crossing the South Tyne by a new bridge at Kirkhaugh, but this was never completed. The act required that LCR was not to be damaged, and Lord Carlisle was permitted to extend his railway over the turnpike from Alston to Brampton after giving one calendar month’s notice of such intention. A later act slightly reduced the scope of the Alston Turnpike Trust,378but the section of the former Hexham turnpike from Hexham to Summerrods was transferred to it.

The section of the plans, prepared under the direction of John Loudon McAdam for the improvement of the Alston to Hexham section of the Alston Turnpike Trust, showing the road going over Whitfield Fell with new sections of road replacing the much steeper sections previously used on each side of the summit level. Reproduced by permission of CAS.

In 1825 plans were prepared by Thomas Bell for a new Turnpike Trust to improve the roads of the Allen valleys.39These improvements were authorised by an act of 1826 which required the upgrading of several existing roads, mostly in the East Allen Valley, and involved building some completely new sections.40These roads continue in use today as the B6295, B6303 and B6304, plus the unclassified road from Thornley Gate, near Allendale, via Coalcleugh to the A689 near Nenthead. The road connecting Burtree Ford with Gateshead, Crook and Durham was provided by the Lobley Hill Turnpike Trust, originally established in 1793.4

In June 1824, at the same time as these road improvements were being planned and authorised, Lord Carlisle sanctioned the construction of a branch from his existing waggonway at Hallbankgate, extending for about 4 miles (6.5km) eastwards to collieries near Midgeholme. The route was first surveyed by Lord Carlisle’s colliery agent, James Thompson, and his plans were then approved by George Stephenson. The extension was built to the gauge of 4ft 8in (1.42m), the same as the S&DR, and the construction was of a much higher standard than the original line.750The choice of the Stephenson gauge for the new part of LCR also determined the gauge of the N&CR, which was being seriously considered at that time. Because Lord Carlisle’s Railway was built without any parliamentary approval there are no deposited plans, but plans deposited for the proposed Wear Valley Extension Railway (WVER), which we will meet in chapter 4, show LCR as the WVER was to run a little to the north of the earlier line. The Midgeholme extension was opened in August 1828, but because of the break of gauge the coal was transhipped at Hallbankgate until the original part of the waggonway was widened over the winter of 1829–30. Even this proved to be only a temporary measure, for early in 1834 it was decided to build a completely new railway from Brampton to Hallbankgate. With these improvements the private railway was expected to carry ‘a good amount’ of general merchandise and passengers, especially from the Alston area to which further extensions were under consideration.

Whitfield Fell, looking east along the roads of the Alston Turnpike Trust. The tarmac road in the foreground was authorised by the act of 1778 and retained by the act of 1824. At the end of the straight length the 1778 turnpike continues over the high moors on a gentle curve to the right, while the 1824 road curves more sharply to the right and drops down the hillside on an even gradient.

A connection was also to be made with the N&CR, by then under construction, which Lord Carlisle’s new line would cross at Milton station, later called Brampton Junction, and now simply Brampton. A little later in 1834, Lord Carlisle authorised a further extension of his line from Midgeholme to Hartley Burn (Halton Lea Gate). The eastern section of this line, which was outside Lord Carlisle’s barony, was to be laid with 1830 rail recovered from the old waggonway between Hallbankgate and Brampton. Although the formation of the eastern extension was ready by November 1835, track-laying did not commence until August of the following year, due to a delay in the completion of the new line to Brampton Town.

Plan showing LCR running along the valley of the Haining Burn. The Tindale ‘battery’ or embankment crosses the Tarn Brook. The proposed WVER runs to the north. Reproduced by permission of CAS.

While Thompson was organising the reconstruction of LCR, the N&CR Company had obtained its Act of Parliament on 22 May 1829,41with a second act,42to raise more money, being granted on 23 June 1832.

In the report in theNewcastle Courantof the general meeting of shareholders,47held on 25 November 1834, it was stated that considerable quantities of lead were being carried by the line from Hexham and Stocksfield to Blaydon, the effective head of navigation on the river Tyne, using horse-drawn wagons. Tomlinson gives the quantities as 1151/2 tons from Stocksfield and 4911/2 tons from Hexham.767TheNewcastle Courantalso stated that this part of the line, about 17 miles, was now virtually open and producing revenue for the company. Having decided that horse traction was too slow and inefficient, the directors ordered steam locomotives, although their original act specifically disallowed their use. Nevertheless a service of steam-hauled passenger trains was introduced between Blaydon and Hexham on 9 March 1835,48only to be withdrawn on the 28th when an injunction was obtained, by Charles Bacon Grey of Styford, preventing the use of the steam engines.49Public opinion was on the side of the railway and services were resumed on 6 May,50although it was not until 17 June that the company obtained an Act of Parliament authorising the use of steam locomotives.53

Significant amounts of lead were carried on this first 17 miles (27.4km) of railway, but the following year three new sections of line were opened, two of which provided railheads much more convenient for the ore-field.58On 28 June 1836, the line was extended 7 miles (11.3km) from Hexham to Haydon Bridge where extensive sidings were provided for the lead traffic coming down the turnpike roads from Alston Moor and Allendale. At least as significant was the opening, on 19 July, of the 20 miles (32km) from Blenkinsopp, near Greenhead, to the depot at London Road, Carlisle. This connected at Milton with the rebuilt section of LCR from Brampton staithes to Hallbankgate, which had been officially opened just four days previously. The extension of LCR to Hartley Burn from Midgeholme was completed later the same year, providing the northern part of the North Pennines with a second convenient railhead reached by another section of the new turnpike roads.

Looking up the Kirkhouse incline on the 1836 line from Hallbankgate to Brampton. Ken Hoole collection, Head of Steam–Darlington Railway Museum (HoS-DRM).

In the east the Blaydon, Gateshead and Hebburn Railway (BG&HR) had received its act on 22 May 183445to build a railway from the N&CR at Blaydon through Gateshead to Hebburn.44A clause empowered the N&CR to construct the line from Blaydon to Gateshead and early in 1835 the N&CR entered into negotiations to take over this section on which work had commenced. The N&CR opened the first part, from Blaydon to the eastern bank of the river Derwent, on 11 June 1836.58The BG&HR only constructed the line from the river Derwent to the river Team before being taken over by the N&CR in September 1836, with the final length into Gateshead on the opposite bank of the Tyne to Newcastle opening on 1 March 1837.63The remainder of the route to Hebburn was constructed by the Brandling Junction Railway Company,51,56and does not concern us. The extension of the western part of the N&CR, from London Road to the terminal basin of the Carlisle Canal, opened on 9 March 1837,61while the central section, from Haydon Bridge through Haltwhistle to Blenkinsopp, followed on 18 June 1838, finally connecting the Tyne with the Solway.65Rails eventually reached the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 21 May 1839 when the line between Blaydon and the Company’s new depot near the Shot Tower in Newcastle was opened for traffic.71Although the completed line was of immediate local and regional importance, and most of it remains part of today’s railway network, the opening of the central section did nothing to improve the transport situation in the North Pennines, as it was not until 1976 that an adequate road was built to link Haltwhistle with the upper reaches of the South Tyne Valley!

When first completed, the N&CR consisted of 46 miles (74km) of double track and 20 miles (32km) of single track railway,68all originally designed to be operated by horses. The directors resolved that, as soon as it was convenient, they would alter some sections of their line to make it more suitable for steam locomotives, as well as doubling it throughout.79Because some of the alterations were outside the authorised limits of deviation, yet another act was obtained on 21 June 1841 to allow the company to proceed with the required work, and also to issue a further £225,000 of shares and borrow another £75,000.85The work of consolidating and improving the newly opened railway, as well as doubling the 20 miles of single line, occupied the next five years, so that it was not until 1845 that the Newcastle Company felt able to turn its attention to the North Pennines.

It is now necessary to return to the meeting of 1818 where it was decided to apply for an Act of Parliament to build a railway from Stockton, through Darlington to the Auckland coalfield.29,739The first act to construct a railway was based on the plans of George Overton, and became law on 19 April 1821.31Two months later George Stephenson was asked to make a new survey,35and a second act was passed on 23 May 1823,34which allowed the company to make several deviations and, more significantly, to use steam locomotives. Before the line was opened a third act was passed, on 17 May 1824,38authorising the construction of a branch to Haggerleases Lane (Butterknowle), where roads radiated not only to several local collieries, but beyond to tap the lead mining area around Middleton-in-Teesdale. When the line was eventually opened on 27 September 1825 it consisted of 20 miles (32km) from Stockton to Shildon, on gradients not exceeding 1 in 104, to be worked by steam locomotives and horses. This was followed by 5 miles (8km) of inclined planes where stationary steam engines hauled the wagons, on gradients of 1 in 30 to 1 in 34, over two ridges to the Phoenix Pit at Etherley in the valley of the river Wear. The next ten years saw the S&DR developing its system in the east, while other companies began to spread through the Durham coalfield, mainly to the north and east, although the Clarence Railway was viewed as a serious competitor.763

The original Haydon Bridge station building photographed in 2004 from the later platform which lies to the north of the original and remains in use today. The goods yard for handling the lead traffic lay behind this building.

The first iron road to actually reach the main ore-fields of the North Pennines was the ill-fated Stanhope and Tyne Railway (S&TR), whose history can be found in Tomlinson’s account of the North Eastern Railway.764The impetus for this extraordinary line came from the formation, in 1831, of a partnership to work coal at Medomsley, north of Consett, and limestone at Stanhope in the Wear Valley. In addition to connecting Stanhope with Medomsley, the partners proposed to continue their railway to staithes on the river Tyne near South Shields. Wishing to keep the extensive nature of their scheme a secret, the partners decided not to apply for an Act of Parliament authorising them to build their railway, which would have given the company established by the Act all the necessary powers to purchase the land they required. Instead the partners had to negotiate ‘wayleaves’ with the landowners giving them the right to build the railway in exchange for the payment of an annual rent. Using the name Stanhope Railroad Company, the partnership began negotiations on 2 December 1831 for wayleaves across the moors north of Stanhope.

During the first half of 1832 the Stanhope and Tyne Railroad Company was formed, with a capital of £150,000 to take over the ‘rights and interests’ of the partnership, and held its first meeting in London on 1 June 1832. The establishment of this new company was confirmed by a deed of settlement dated 3 February 1834.91Work started at the Stanhope end of the line in July 1832 with Robert Stephenson and Thomas Elliot Harrison as engineers. Although the use of wayleaves saved both the expense of an Act of Parliament and the purchase price of the land, it saddled the company with an annual rent of £5,600 on a main line almost 34 miles (54.5km) long plus 3¾ miles (6.1km) of branch lines. Although the rents for the western portion were relatively inexpensive, being in the region of £40 to £50 per mile, those for the eastern section averaged £280 to £300 per mile.

Work progressed at a reasonable rate and the western 15¼ miles (24.5km) of railway, from Stanhope to Annfield, was opened on 15 May 1834.46Unfortunately the day was marred by an accident on the Weatherhill incline when the shackle attaching four wagons, carrying forty to fifty people, broke and the wagons were stopped from continuing down the Crawley incline by being diverted into a siding containing four loaded wagons, killing a man and a 9-year-old boy. The continuation to South Shields was opened on 10 September 1834.765Originally, it was not planned that passengers would be carried on the S&TR, which was constructed more on the contemporary principles of a private colliery line than a public railway, with several severely graded sections. In this it was similar to the section of the S&DR west of Shildon, which used inclined planes, worked by stationary steam engines, to carry the iron road into the Auckland coalfield. It is interesting to note that George Stephenson’s modernisation of Lord Carlisle’s private railway also included a self-acting inclined plane between Hallbankgate and Milton. On the other hand, William Chapman, Josias Jessop and Benjamin Thompson, the engineers of the N&CR, ensured that the maximum gradients on their line could be worked by horses.704

The plan, by Robert Stephenson, of 1823 showing the western end of the Stockton and Darlington Railway with the Haggerleases Branch. Reproduced by permission of Durham County Record Office (DRO).

Even before the S&TR was completed, or most of the directors of the S&DR had seriously thought of turning their attention to extending their railway westwards, the prospectus for a new railway, called the Tees, Weardale and Tyne Junction Railroad, was published by George H. Wilkinson.43