Holy Island Waggonway

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Holy Island Waggonway
Former Waggonway Bridge
Former Waggonway Bridge
Route of the Holy Island Wagonway
Holy Island on the Eastern Wagonway, 1860
Gauge : 610 mm ( 2 foot track )
Legend
                  
Snipe Point
                  
Nessend quarry
                  
Quarry
                  
                  
                  
                  
St-Cuthbert Limestone Works
                  
                  
Kennedy Limestone Works
                  
Chare ends
                  
                  
The Basin
                  
1840 jetty
                  
                  
Lindisfarne Monastery
                  
                  
                  
Lindisfarne Castle
                  
Above: loading
                  
Castle Point Kilns
                  
Below: discharge
                  
1860s landing stages

The Holy Island Wagonway consisted of three interconnected narrow-gauge railways on Lindisfarne Island in Northumberland , England, which operated essentially one after the other from 1846 to 1883.

The first two stretches connected the limestone quarries at the north end of the island with the nearby kilns and then along the west coast of the island to the tidal body of water called The Basin , located at Tripping Chare north of Lindisfarne Monastery . The third line replaced the first two and connected the quarries with new kilns and two new landing stages at Lindisfarne Castle . This route ran on the east coast of the island. All lines were closed in the mid-1880s.

Early days

The lime kilns on Lindisfarne were first mentioned in a document in 1344, although the process has certainly been used there for thousands of years, but only on a small scale for local needs before industrialization. There are also limestone deposits on the neighboring mainland, so that there was no significant locational advantage for limestone mining on the island. In the 18th century, the island's population was considered impoverished, willing to emigrate and lawless. The number of residents continued to decrease.

industrialization

During the time of the Enclosure Movement on Lindisfarne in the 1790s, agricultural use of the island increased and the value of its production increased eightfold. In the age of industrialization, this, together with the extraction of coal and lime, led to radical social progress.

There are thin, unproductive coal seams on the island that have been mined for a long time. In the early 1800s, attempts were made to mine the coal on a larger scale, but the scarcity and poor quality of the coal resulted in high costs and low yields because more easily accessible and better coal was cheaper elsewhere. Coal was therefore imported by ship from Scotland and especially from South Northumberland in the 19th century .

In the early 1800s, before the narrow-gauge railways were built, iron ore was even mined on the island. As with coal, however, there were more abundant and cheaper deposits elsewhere.

St Cuthbert's Limeworks Wagonway

Map 1 : The wagonways of St Cuthbert's Limeworks on the west coast (red), from the Nessend quarry to Lower Kennedy (pink) and from the Nessend quarry to Castle Point (turquoise)

The feudal lord John Selby wanted not only to market quick lime locally, but also to ship it. So on December 21, 1839, he wrote a request to the royal commissioners, asking them for assistance in setting up a steam engine-powered quarry, building modern lime kilns, a ship landing stage and a railroad that connected them. The correspondence with appraisals and reports went back and forth until May 31, 1842, when the commissioners recommended that the royal treasury pay the cost of the wooden jetty if Selby financed the rest. An enthusiastic report in the Berwick and Kelso Warder newspaper on July 25, 1846 announced that construction had started in 1845 and production at St Cuthbert’s Lime Works had started in early 1846, sending several shipments of quick lime to Dundee and other Scottish areas Ports were shipped. The report also mentions that coal mined locally on the island was used. The size of the enterprise was only modest, however, since the census of 1851 only lists eight workers employed in the lime works.

St Cuthbert's Limeworks are shown unnamed on Map 1 , the Ordnance Survey Map from 1860. These lime works are jointly labeled with Lime Works and consist of Well , Smithy , Limekiln and Limekilns . The map shows that the Waggonway connected the quarries in the north of the island via a long ramp to the St-Cuthbert's lime kilns and via another ramp to the jetty in the south north of Tripping Chare, allowing both imported coal from the ships with it as well as quick lime could be transported for shipping. The jetty had a crane and two siding. Ships could only dock and cast off there at high tide.

Two sections of the St Cuthbert's Limeworks Wagonway are shown on Map 1 in the north of the island. The western, d. H. further south the middle one leads to Seal Gut , part of the quarries called Acre Quarries , whose common name is not noted on the map. The eastern railway line leads over the mean high water mark at Snipe Point to the rocks on the shore, some of which were flooded daily at high tide, which made mining difficult and impaired productivity. This quarry was called Coves Quarry , but that is not noted on the map. Confusingly, the name Coves Head Quarry is later also used for the Nessend quarry.

St Cuthbert's Limeworks were shut down between 1859 and 1861, but the exact date of the shutdown of the quarries north of it and the wagonway between them have not been recorded. Lime was already being burned in Lower Kennedy in 1860, but it is quite possible that lime from the Nessend quarry was also being used in the St-Cuthbert's works. By 1861 at the latest, all work in the Coves and Acre quarries had been relocated to the Nessend quarry.

Wagonway from Nessend Quarry to Lower Kennedy

Limestone layer near Nessend

The large-scale works and transportation routes of St Cuthbert's Limeworks represented a step change in history. The Nessend Quarry and the Lower Kennedy Limeworks represented further progress, but it did not pay off. The Nessend Quarry was not affected by the tides and was therefore more economically viable than the Coves and Acre Quarries . A wagonway connecting Nessend with a jetty south of St Cuthbert's Limeworks built in 1846 is first mentioned on an Admiralty map from around 1855.

In 1856, John Selby applied to extend his feudal rule, which would otherwise have expired in 1858. He leased the land and mining rights for 21 years to the lime trader John Nicholl from Dundee for a fee of £ 250 plus 2 pence per tonne of mined and burnt lime above 5000 tons per year from Michael Day 1858 . The term "degraded and burned" ( made and burnt ) is confusing because the production of one ton of quicklime requires two tons of limestone.

Map 2 : Old and planned new lime works on John Higgins' map from 1860

Nicholl ran his business on Holy Island with some enthusiasm, but with insufficient caution. He received permission from the Admiralty in March 1860 to build lime kilns at Castle Point in the southeast of the island. It was an ambitious move to a more suitable location, even though he had only recently built the kiln with three combustion chambers for a lot of money. There are no exact dates for commissioning and shutdown, but John Higgins' Map 2 of March 8, 1860 shows the kilns built later at Castle Point as planned ( proposed ) and those at Lower Kennedy as still existing ( present ). The Berwick Advertiser began reporting sea voyages to Iceland, first with the 302 ton brigantine Isabella , which set sail for Dundee on April 14, 1860 with a cargo of lime and returned nine days later with a cargo of coal for the kilns. In this report, however, it is not noted whether the ship used the older jetty at Tripping Chare or the two new jetties at Lindisfarne Castle .

It is believed that the Lower Kennedy Wagonway was used as a thoroughfare from 1855 to 1861 and as a junction to the Lower Kennedy Kilns from 1858 to 1861. No photos of the facilities at Lower Kennedy are known, but there is a drawing by Peter Westley. It's not clear why Nicholl shut down the Lower Kennedy Kilns so early. Either he had acted prematurely with the construction before he realized the locational advantage of Castle Point, or he had not taken care of the land use rights necessary for its operation.

Only the census documents from 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1881 list employees of the lime works and quarries. In the spring of 1861 the number was more than twice as high as in other years. According to the census of 1861, 35 workers worked in the kilns and in the quarries; many of them lived in a newly created village near the quarries. In 1871 the company had already reduced itself and only 9 workers were employed in the kilns and 11 workers in the quarries.

Wagonway from Nessend Quarry to Castle Point

Map 3 : Route of the eastern wagonway
Castle Point Kilns

The names for the railroad changed over the course of time from "Waggonway" to "Wagonway" and "Tramway". The third and last railway on the island was the Waggonway or Tramway on the east coast, shown on Map 3, which was in operation for the longest and remains of which can still be seen today.

By 1858, Nicholl had decided to build the Lower Kennedy Limeworks and abandon the older St Cuthbert's Limeworks. Map 2 shows his plans. After a brief, intensive use of the Lower Kennedy Works, he received approval from the Admiralty to build new kilns and two parallel jetties near Lindisfarne Castle and to connect them to the quarries near Nessend with a completely new tramway along the east coast. Therefore he gave up Lower Kennedy and the jetty built in 1846 on the west coast around 1861 and probably reused some of the material.

The island was surveyed for ordnance survey maps in 1860 and 1898. The maps from 1860 do not yet show the eastern wagonway, and when the 1898 survey was carried out, the railroad had been shut down for 15 years and the tracks had been dismantled. Castle Point Limekilns had six combustion chambers; H. twice as many as Lower Kennedy. No contemporary photos of the kilns are known, but two paintings by Ralph Hedley show the operation at the Castle Point jetties. The business was not profitable according to reports from the royal commissioners in 1870 and 1874. A land sale report in 1874 indicates that the quarries will soon be exhausted, even with the low rate of mining. After the feudal rule was transferred to Colonel Crossman in 1874, there was a dispute between Crossman and Nicholl.

From 1871 to 1881, the number of workers halved again. In the 1860s, six of Nicholl's ships regularly sailed between Holy Island and Dundee: Agnes , Belford , Isabella , Lancaster , Margaret Reid, and Maria . But they did not form a monopoly, as the ships Curlew , Mersey , Robert Hood and Superior also carried lime. Curlew and Mersey caught fire when seawater came into contact with the unslaked lime. In the 1870s the number of shiploads decreased and the work became seasonal. Agnes was the last ship loaded with lime when she sailed for Dundee on September 17, 1883. Nicholl's ships continued to come to the island, but neither for lime nor for coal.

Operation of the quarries, wagonways, kilns and landing stages

Lindisfarne from the west by Ralph Hedley , 1883. Lime is poured into the ship from the higher landing stage, creating a cloud of dust
Unloading Coal on a Wooden Jetty - Holy Island by Ralph Hedley, 1883

There is little information about the mining methods in the quarries and operations on the wagonways. The 1861 census lists a machinist and two blacksmiths. The only known mechanical device was a crane on the Tripping Chare jetty. There was an explosives store that survived until the 1950s, so it is believed that the lime that was mined for burning was blasted. There is no evidence of mechanical devices.

Hedley's paintings show how a ship docked between the jetties at Castle Point, which are of different heights. Coal was unloaded from a loading gear attached to the ship's masts onto a horse-drawn tipping lorry on the lower landing stage. Lime was tipped from three horse-drawn tipping lorries from the higher landing stage directly into the hold of the ship. From the paintings, the gauge of the wagonway was about 2 feet (610 mm). There is evidence that a steam locomotive was operated on a trial basis but was found unsuitable because it derailed too often.

remains

Embankment of the Waggonway and limestone kilns

The first two wagonways were shut down around 1861 and then dismantled. The route now forms a footpath from Chare Ends to the north.

The Nessend quarry is labeled on the map and can be seen in satellite photos. From Sandham to the south, the third wagonway ran on a railway embankment to Lindisfarne Castle, which can still be seen in the great outdoors, in photos and on satellite images. In 2014 it formed the foundation for a paved footpath. The kilns at Lindisfarne Castle are well preserved and are under the care of the National Trust . The routes running on different levels for the transport of coal from the lower landing stage built in 1861–83 to the kilns and the quick lime to the ships can still be traced in the wild and in various publications.

literature

  • Roger C. Jermy: Lindisfarne's Limestone Past: Quarries, Tramways and Kilns . Northumberland County Library, Morpeth 1992, ISBN 1 874020 04 3 .
  • Magnusson, M .: Lindisfarne: The Cradle Island . Oriel Press, Stocksfield, Northumberland 1992, ISBN 0-85362-223-X .
  • Notes and News: Iron Rails in Lindisfarne . In: Tothill Press Limited (Ed.): The Railway Magazine . 90, No. 549, London, January 1944.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Map 1 shows the St Cuthbert's Limeworks immediately northwest of the capital letter H of the largest lettering Holy Island superimposed on the map on the 1860 6-inch Ordnance Survey map , which shows the early wagonways to a ship pier in the southwest of the island.
  2. ↑ The zigzag line labeled Limekilns was probably not a lime kiln, but storage silos for semi-finished and finished slaked lime . The walls labeled with Old Walls were not part of the lime works. The active lime kilns consisted of two pots labeled Limekiln . The building marked with Limekiln immediately south of the capital letter H was not part of the St Cuthbert Limeworks, but of the later, only briefly used Lower Kennedy Works, which are described below. The wagonway that branches off to the northeast and runs through the capital letter H was also a later extension for the Lower Kennedy Works.
  3. ↑ The National Library of Scotland offers an overlay of modern satellite photos and the historical 1-inch map of Holy Island from 1885-1900 . To set the transparency, the blue button at the bottom left of the screen can be pushed back and forth. About "2. Select a map ... “ a drop-down box with different maps appears. At the starting position the jetty from 1846–61 and the wagonway leading to it are shown. If the blue button is pushed to the left, the former jetty becomes visible underwater, but the route of the wagon path towards Chare Ends cannot be seen. The historical maps of the area shown in Map 1 do not offer an overlay function, but the structures of St. Cuthbert's Limeworks and the route to Snipe Point can be made visible in different views of the 1860 6-inch Ordnance Survey map of Holy Island .
  4. ↑ The satellite photos and maps of the jetties built in 1861–83 on Rail Map Online can be overlaid if a drop-down menu is opened in the upper right corner of the screen.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roger C. Jermy: Northern Northumberland's Minor Railways: Volume 4: Limestone Industry Lines . The Oakwood Press, Catrine, Ayrshire 2012, ISBN 978-0-85361-706-8 , Locomotion Papers 234D. P. 25 and 31.
  2. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 13.
  3. ↑ 1955 Ordnance Survey Map showing the limestone deposits in north-east England. Online edition of the National Library of Scotland.
  4. ↑ Magnusson, 1984, p. 162. Quotation: "grinding poverty, emigration, lawlessness and a decline in population."
  5. ↑ Magnusson, 1984, p. 162. Quotation: “the agricultural potential of the land was increased, and its value was estimated to have increased eightfold.”
  6. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 12.
  7. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 23.
  8. ^ St Cuthbert's Limeworks on Rail Map Online .
  9. ↑ Jermy, 2012, pp. 19-22.
  10. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 25.
  11. ↑ Map 2: 1860 6 "OS map showing the earlier waggonway to Snipe Point on the island's north coast, via the National Library of Scotland
  12. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 22.
  13. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 34.
  14. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 27.
  15. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 22.
  16. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 23.
  17. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 28.
  18. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 13.
  19. ^ A b Caroline Hardie and Harry Beamish: Historic Environment Survey for the National Trust Properties on the Northumberland Coast Lindisfarne Report No: 0058 / 5-09. ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (16.3 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aenvironment.co.uk
  20. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 28. Quotation: “Nicholl would appear to have entered into his Holy Island enterprise with some alacrity but perhaps insufficient caution.”
  21. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 28-31.
  22. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 24.
  23. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 28-29.
  24. ↑ Jermy, 2012, pp. 54–56.
  25. ↑ Holy Island Lime Kilns via Undiscovered Scotland .
  26. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 28-29.
  27. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 17 and 33-41.
  28. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 26 and 29
  29. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 35-38.
  30. ↑ Jermy, 1992, p. 43.
  31. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 37-38.
  32. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 30-31.
  33. ↑ Nick Lewis, Harry Beamish and John Harris: Discover - The Castle Point lime kilns. National Trust, 2010.
  34. ↑ Jermy, 2012, p. 31.
  35. ↑ 6 inch Ordnance Survey Map Northumberland XII.NE, measured in 1896-97 and published in 1899
  36. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 50-52.
  37. ↑ Jermy, 1992, pp. 33-39.

Coordinates: 55 ° 40 ′ 53.5 "  N , 1 ° 47 ′ 2.1"  W.