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July, 1939

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The subject of wayleaves cannot be ignored, for the exactions of landlords in the matter of heavy wayleave rents impeded the progress of rail transport. Roger North's remark about the high prices asked was no isolated statement. As mines adjacent to the river (naturally the earliest to be worked) became exhausted, coalowners found it necessary to sink shafts further inland; in 1689 it was stated¹³ that "the coal-pits nearest the water are almost quite exhausted and decayed." Railways thus became a necessity rather than merely a convenience, and coalowners were compelled to make the best arrangements they could with intervening landlords for rights of passage between the pits and the staiths. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, complaints were voiced frequently,¹⁴ and in 1696 it was even suggested that Parliament should regulate wayleaves, as unrestricted charges were imperilling the inland movement from the Tyne. In giving evidence before Parliament in 1738, a viewer named Stokoe said: There are 50 to 60 collieries unlet around Newcastle, but this was caused partly by waterlogging as well as prohibitive wayleaves." Cloughton, another viewer, said at the same inquiry that 5 miles was the average distance of the collieries from the river, and 8 miles the farthest.

In 1671 Sir Thomas Lyddell laid a wagon-way from his Ravensworth (or Ravenswath) colliery to the Tyne at Dunston (or Dunstal) which was the first section of an extensive system of wagon-ways. In 1810 staith files preserved at Ravensworth Castle were quoted¹⁵ as evidence of the date. Another early wagon-way that came into the group was one laid in 1712 over Tanfield Moor by Sir John Clavering and Thomas Brumell from their Lintz and Buck's Nook collieries. Two years later George Pitt used this line when he opened out the Tanfield coalfield. Tomlinson records¹⁶ that Pitt came into conflict with William Davison of Beamish, the lord of the manor, who demanded a wayleave rent on the ground that liberty of passage enjoyed by Pitt was confined to carts and wains and did not include wagons running on rails. As Pitt was a member of Parliament the matter was allowed to remain in abeyance, but in 1719 Dame Jane Clavering, widow of Sir John Clavering, who had died in 1714, purchased for £4,000 Davison's rights in Tanfield Moor with the object of securing control of the wayleaves. The matter was referred in 1721 to the Court of Chancery, and ultimately decided¹⁷ in favour of Lady Clavering. By an indenture, dated April 26, 1731, between Dame Jane Clavering and George Pitt, a right of wayleave from collieries in the Tanfield district to the Rivers Tyne or Derwent was granted for 500 years, on payment of 2s. 6d. for every ton of coals carried along the wagon-ways.¹⁸

Incidentally, this Chancery case¹⁹ gives a good description of permanent way of the period, in the following terms: "For the making of waggon-ways the ground must be made as level as possible, without narrow turnings, and pieces of hard timber or wood called sleepers must be fixed in the ground, and raised some inches from the ground, for the wheels of the waggons to run on, and can be used only by waggons and not by carts." Here again we have the point brought out that special vehicles were required for use on the rail, and the cumulative force of these references, by different writers and in a variety of circumstances, leaves little doubt that special flanged wheels were used on wagon-ways from their introduction into this country.

Long eighteenth-century wagon-ways

Another old wagon-way of considerable importance was built by Lord Windsor, Lord Dunkerron, Matthew Ridley, and John Simpson. It ran from the Pontop, Pontop Pike, Bushblades (and afterwards the Tanfield Moor Edge) collieries via Bryan's Leap, Rowland's Gill, and Swalwell, to Derwenthaugh. Its owners were working the coal demised by Anthony Meaburne previous to 1729²⁰ to Lady Clavening, Richard Ridley, and others, and the course of the line may be seen on the accompanying map running from "Windsors and Simpsons Pontop" to a staith on the Tyne just to the west of the place where the Rivers Tyne and Derwent meet. The works between Bryan's Leap and Rowland's Gill were very heavy and costly, and at the latter point the line crossed the Derwent, presumably by the road bridge. Hutchinson in 1794²¹ said that the "Darwenthaugh waggon-way, extending from Burnopfield and Brian's Leap to the River Derwent, was the most difficult and expensive work of the kind hitherto executed in the coal trade." Tomlinson states that the L.N.E.R. Harelaw branch uses the old wagon-way formation for about 1½ miles.

The families of Lyddell and Montague became associated in the working of Blackburn, or Burdon Moor, colliery and leased the coal under the freehold lands of Thomas Dawson and William Davison at Tanfield, and of Ralph Clavering, junior, at Causey. They thereupon began to build one of the longest and most remarkable wagon-ways so far laid down, extending the existing Dunston to Ravensworth and Tanfield Moor system southwards from Bowes Bridge. The works, described in 1739²² as having been constructed "at the expense of many thousand pounds," included some large cuttings, an extensive embankment across the valley of Beckley Burn, and a single-arch stone bridge called Dawson's bridge or the Causey arch. This wagon-way was visited in September, 1725, by Dr. William Stukeley, accompanied by Richard Gale, and the following account²³ of their visit has survived: "We saw Colonel Lyddal's coal-works at Tanfield, where he carries the road over valleys filled with earth, 100 foot high, 300 foot broad at bottom: other valleys as large have a stone bridge laid across: in other places hills are cut through for half a mile together, and in this manner a road is made, and frames of timber laid for five miles to the river side, where coals are delivered at 5s. the chaldron." Dr. Stukeley mentions loaded vehicles running by gravity down the wagon-way, and being checked by a wooden brake lever on one wheel.

The Grand Allies

Wayleave difficulties eventually resulted in the establishment of the most powerful partnership that the coal trade has known. It was commonly known as the "Grand Allies" and comprised (1) the Hon. Sidney Wortley Montagu, his son, the Hon. Edward Wortley Montagu, and Thomas Ord of Newcastle; (2) Sir Henry Liddell and Col. George Liddell (or Lyddal) of Ravensworth Castle; and (3) George Bowes, of Gibside. The last-named had estates at Marley Hill and Hedley, rights over Hedley Fell, a joint interest in Park Head colliery and, about 1725, purchased a colliery at Shield Row. The agreement of the Grand Allies was dated June 27, 1726, and was designed "to join some of their collieries and to enter into a friendship and partnership for the purchasing or taking other collieries, and for winning and working of coals thereout, and to exchange benefits and kindnesses with each other, upon a lasting foundation." This agreement gave the one powerful group a virtual monopoly of the most valuable mineral district in the north of England.

Upon the entry of George Bowes into the group and the formal establishment of the Grand Allies, Bowes contributed his share of the expense incurred "in making and erecting the bridge called Dawson's bridge, and of drifting into and winning the colliery called Mr. Dawson's colliery." As we have seen, work on the bridge had already been undertaken before the new partnership came into being, but the precise date when it was brought into service is unknown. It was built by Ralph Wood, a local master mason, and the date 1727 (presumably that of completion) formed part of the inscription "Ra. Wood, Mason, 1727" on a sundial built into one of the piers. A copy of the inscription was made in 1787, at which time a writer stated that the bridge had long been abandoned owing to the closing of one of the important collieries served by the wagon-way which crossed it.

Apart from the wagon-ways already existing or under construction when the partnership was formed, the Grand Allies extended their main line to Beamish South Moor and Shield Row, a distance of eight miles from the River Tyne and the farthest that such wagon-ways to that river stretched. The districts immediately to the west were served by the lines of other owners running to the River Wear. As already indicated, the Causey arch was not the only prominent engineering work on this important system of wagon-ways. The embankment at Beckley Burn was 100 ft. high and 300 ft. broad at the base. Its construction necessitated making a drift through the rock for the course of the diverted stream. The embankment now carries the Tanfield branch of the L.N.E.R. and is probably the oldest railway embankment in the world to be still in use. The Causey arch itself is a slightly flattened arch of 103 ft. span built of freestone. It is 35 ft. high from a base line through the springing points to the underside of the arch and about 10 ft. thence to the road surface. The road itself is about 24 ft. wide and formerly accommodated a double track timber railway of 4-ft. gauge.

Practically all the coal from the Tanfield and the South Moor district at one time passed over the wagon-way to the Tyne. It would appear that in 1732 an average of about 400 Newcastle chaldrons (each of 53 cwt.) a day was conveyed and it may be supposed that this quantity had increased when the line was visited in 1765 by M. Gabriel Jars, of the Royal Academy of Science at Paris; he recorded in "Voyages Metallurgiques" that "it was almost always covered with wagons." Incidentally, we are indebted to M. Jars for recording the 4-ft. gauge with precision when he says that the rails were thus placed at this distance from each other "la largeur interieure du chemin."

Early wooden permanent way

The description by M. Jars of permanent-way construction at that period is very interesting, and the following is a rough translation from his "Voyages Metallurgiques" of the pertinent section: "When the road has been traced at 6 feet in breadth, and where the declivities are fixed, an excavation is made of the breadth of the said road, more or less deep, according as the levelling of the ground requires. There are afterwards arranged along the whole breadth of this excavation pieces of oak wood, of the thickness of 4, 5, 6, and even 8 inches square; these are placed across, and at the distance of 2 or 3 feet from each other; these pieces need only be squared at their extremities, and upon these are fixed other pieces of wood, well squared and sawed, of about 6 or 7 inches breadth, by 5 inches depth, with pegs of wood; these pieces are placed on each side of the road along its whole length: they are commonly placed at 4 feet distance from each other, which forms the interior breadth of the road." M. Jars also described and illustrated the mine wagons in use at Newcastle and particularly the large wheels which were either of solid wood or of iron with spokes, and with flanges from 1 in. to 1½ in. in depth. He added that the size of the front and back pairs should be unequal (the front pair being the larger) in order to maintain horizontal the load of coal in the wagon which always travelled on a slope in the same direction. Jars also illustrated turntables.

Another contemporary illustration of the type of permanent way and vehicle described by M. Jars appeared in 1773 in the "Recueil des Arts et Metiers." In this picture both iron and wooden wheels are shown, and although flanges are not indicated, the fact that the wagon is descending a curved track by gravity with the horse following clearly indicates that there must have been some flange to keep the wagon on the rails. A detailed account of the ideas of wagon-ways and their construction in the middle of the eighteenth century is contained in a manuscript letter dated "Throckley, 30 of July, 1754," from William Brown to Carlisle Spedding of Whitehaven.²⁴ Brown obtained a lease of the Greenwich Hospital royalty at Throckley in 1745, when the estates were sequestrated from the Earl of Derwentwater, and was one of the leading mining engineers of his day. This letter says, inter alia :–

This reference to metal wheels is particularly interesting, for in May, 1731, Elias Thornhill, a whitesmith of Sunderland, obtained a patent²⁵ for "his new invention of making the rim or edge of coal waggon wheels with iron or steel and with iron ribs or tabbs and iron bolts, rivets, and screws for fastening the same." Cast-iron flanged wheels in use on a quarry railway at Bath were described in 1734.²⁶

It would appear that the original wooden rails were normally of oak in lengths of about 6 ft. and of the type of construction outlined by M. Jars. A subsequent development, in order to facilitate repairs, led to fixing an additional, and more easily replaced, wooden rail on top of the first. New construction on this principle enabled fir or pine to be used for the bottom rail with a hardwood top rail of oak, beech, or sycamore to provide the wearing surface. A pamphlet²⁷ entitled "Extracts from the Letterbook of William Scott "has fortunately preserved interesting details and prices of railway material in the middle of the eighteenth century. By this time mineral railways were used extensively, and their construction and maintenance had resulted in extensive imports into Newcastle and Sunderland of rails, planks, and wagon wheels, from various parts of the South of England, particularly from Sussex and the New Forest, which were the main English sources for the supply of timber. The following quotations from his letters give a good idea of the kinds of wood used and the prices paid :–

According to Matthias Dunn²⁸ "In 1745, the cost of a yard of wooden way was 4s. 2d., viz., two yards of oak rails, 1s. 2d.; three sleepers, 2s. 6d.; pins, 1d.; laying, 3d.; filling and ballasting, 2d." A further indication of the high state of development which these colliery wagonways had reached by the middle of the eighteenth century is provided by a letter written on June 15, 1755, by Carlisle Spedding which referred to throwing runaway wagons into a side branch by means of a switch rail worked by an iron rod and lever. The quotation given above from Scott's letter book for January 8, 1747-48, seems to indicate that many of the long wagon-ways (i.e., up to 8 miles in length) had then been built, and the position 30 years later is strikingly shown by a "Plan of the Collieries on the Rivers Tyne and Wear," published in 1788 from surveys by John Gibson, of which the present writer possesses a copy. This forms the basis of the map reproduced on page 254, on which has been superimposed similar details from a map (unfortunately not to scale) of 1812.

In addition to the lines already mentioned, one or two are worthy of more than passing notice. In particular there is the Killingworth wagon-way, which will always be associated with the name of George Stephenson. The section from Willington Square to Willington Quay seems to have been laid in 1762 and to have adopted the gauge of 4 ft. 8 in. Shortly afterwards it was extended by the Grand Allies to Long Benton colliery, and in 1806 the branch to Killingwotth colliery was formed. It was here that Stephenson was employed, and in July, 1814, he placed on the rails the locomotive Bluc her, the ancestor of all flanged-wheeled adhesion locomotives. Another line concerned with the earliest days of steam traction was the Wylam wagon-way. This was formed as a wooden way previous to 1763 and had the unusually large gauge of 5 ft. A Trevithick-type locomotive built for Wylam by John Whinfield of Gateshead in 1805 never went into service, and the line was relaid with L-shaped plate rails in 1808. It thus became quite exceptional on Tyneside, where railways for flanged-wheel vehicles have an unbroken history of some 300 years. On the Wylam line Wiliam Hedley, the viewer, introduced locomotives (unflanged) in 1813.

Of the railways shown by the map to have been built between 1788 and 1812, we have quite a number of notes in the "Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events" by John Sykes, published in 1833. In this. he records the ceremonial opening on May 17, 1809, of the wagon-way from Bewicke Main (Urpeth) to the Tyne, for which about 10,000 persons were assembled. Stationary steam engines were used to haul the wagons up the inclined planes, and as this is believed to be the first installation of the kind the large crowd is understandable. On March 15, 1810, a self-acting plane at Whitehouse, on the same wagon-way, was brought into use, from which it may be assumed that the man responsible (Samuel Cooke of Ayton House, one of the owners of the colliery) was a pioneer of modern equipment.

Despite the extensive use of wagon-ways from the pit head to a shipment staith on one of the main rivers, there is no evidence of the early use of rails underground anywhere in the Northumberland and Durham area. John Buddle, jr. (1773-1840), the most famous mining engineer of his day, stated in 1807 that wooden railways were first used underground about 1778. Presumably he was referring to lines in the actual workings. An exceptional example of a wagon-way in tunnel was that shown on the map as "subterraneous tunnel" running from East Kenton to Scotswood. - Galloway's "Annals of Coal Mining" (1898) states that the tunnel is said to have been made about 1770 by Christopher Bedlington. A lengthy account of it is given by Abraham Rees in his "Cyclopædia" of 1819 under the heading "Coal." He says that the pit "which can be entered with the greatest ease and safety, is in the vicinity of Newcastle, viz, East Kenton colliery, the property of Messrs. Knowsley and Chapman. . . . The steath is by the river side, about four miles above Newcastle, a pleasant excursion by water." The visitors were then seated in "small empty coal waggons, capable of containing two persons each, seven of which are drawn along a rail-way by one horse." Rees describes the tunnel, or subterraneous passage, as "6 ft. high, about the same breadth, and three miles long: . . . The passage is in general hewn out of solid rock . . . Where there is not rock, it is arched with brick or stone. The water from the pit runs down by the side of the railway to the river Tyne. At intervals there are double railways."

From the foregoing notes it will be seen that, scattered among the records of the coalmining industry for a period of about 200 years, fairly full details have been preserved of the developments of a transport system containing all the essentials of the modern public railway. The track to accommodate flanged-wheel vehicles which made mining practicable at a distance from a navigable waterway, had become an iron railway with points and turntables, and with both locomotive and stationary-engine traction, by the early years of the nineteenth century. It remained only for the public need to arise, and the mining engineers of the North-East Coast were able to offer the world at large a proved transport system which has revolutionised civilisation.

REFERENCES

13. "Reasons offered to Parliament for the not laying of any further imposition upon coals imported to London," 1689.
14. See the "Records of the Newcastle Hostmen's Company" regarding a petition dated February 20, 1696. that Parliament should regulate wayleaves also "An Inquiry into the Reasons of the Advance of the Price of Coals," 1739.
15. Bailey's "General View of the County of Durham."
16. "The North Eastern Railway, its Rise and Development," by William Weaver Tomlinson.
17. Pitt v. Clavering, "Chancery Proceedings," May, 1721.
18. Fordyce's "Coal and Iron."
19. Pitt v. Clavering. Plea and Demurrer of Dame Jane Clavering, October 12, 1721.
20. See "Spearman's Inquiry," 1729, page 85.
21. William Hutchinson's "History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham," 1794.
22. "Brief for the Coalowners," February. 1738/9.
23. "Itinerarium Curiosum."
24. See "Old Mining Records and Plans," by T. V. Simpson. Trans. Inst. Mining Engineers, March, 1931.
25. "Archæologia Aeliana," quoted by H. M. Tomlinson.
26. "A Course in Experimental Philosophy," by John Theophilus Desaguliers.v
27. Published at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1848 by M. A. Richardson.
28. "View of the Coal Trade," by Matthias Dunn.

Drawings and Photographs accompanying the article