The West Somerset Mineral Railway runs from the Brendon Hillss in eastern Exmoor to the Somerset coast at Watchet. The railway was built in the 1860s to link the important iron mining region of the Brendon Hills with the sea. Iron ore was shipped across the Severn Estuary to south Wales where it was smelted.
The West Somerset Mineral Railway - also known locally as The Old Mineral Line' - was an artery for this Victorian iron mining landscape on the Brendon Hills, but it is also an outstanding example of Victorian railway engineering, with a massive inclined plane as its centerpiece:
one of the longest, steepest and best preserved in the UK. Along the line are the remains of railway stations, iron mines, mine buildings, villages, schools and chapels that were in use from the 1860s until the beginning of the 20th century. As well as the
Victorian mining on the Brendon Hills, there are also traces of iron exploitation dating back to the Roman period.
Work to conserve and interpret the remains of the Old Mineral Line and its rich industrial heritage has been given a huge impetus with a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The grant was made in December 2007 and will enable
conservation, interpretation and access works to be carried out. It is fitting recognition that the Old Mineral Line and its associated industrial past is one of the most important industrial landscapes in
the region.
Work to conserve and enhance the remains of the Old Mineral Line are being led by Exmoor National
Park Authority who are working with a consortium made up of local and national partners including West Somerset Council, the Forestry Commission, Somerset County Council, Watchet Town Council, English Heritage, Watchet Market House Museum, the Exmoor Mines Research Group and the Somerset Rural Youth Project.
Information about the West Somerset Mineral Railway can be found in Watchet Market House Museum. Burrow Farm Engine House is a remarkably intact Cornish engine house - the only one of its kind in Somerset.
Brendon Hill Station
Timberscombe hillfort was built during the Iron Age (700BC- 43AD) and has yielded evidence of iron smithing.
The West Somerset Mineral Railway (WSMR) was an independant railway in West Somerset, constructed as a standard gauge (4' 8½") single-track line.
Its main purpose was to carry iron ore from the mines on the Brendon Hills done to the port at Watchet, but it also provided a public passenger service. The first section was opened for traffic in 1857 and passenger services commenced formally in 1865.
With a decline in traffic towards the end of the 19th century the railway was closed completely in 1898. It was re-opened in 1907, but with little success - the company was wound-up in 1910 and the railway was abandoned formally in 1923.
Although part of its route passed close to the Minehead Branch of the Great Western Railway it had no physical connection with any other railway, except on a few occasions when a temporary connection was installed between the WSMR and GWR for the transfer of rolling-stock
The West Somerset Mineral Railway is Exmoor's most spectacular industrial monument. It was built in the 19th century to provide an artery along the Brendon Hills to the coast at Watchet in order to export iron ore to South Wales.
The West Somerset Mineral Railway Seal
A central part of the railway is The Incline - a one kilometre long, 1in 4 inclined plane - which conveyed ore wagons down the Brendon Hills escarpment. Exmoor National Park Authority has purchased The Incline and has carried out a major programme of works to conserve this evocative reminder of Exmoor's industrial past.
Bibliography
"Mineral Railways of the West Country" - T Fairclough & E Shepherd, pub D Bradford Barton 1975
"The Old Mineral Line" - RJ Sellick, pub Exmoor Press 1976
"Railways around Exmoor" - R Madge, pub Exmoor Press 1975 (2nd ed)
"A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Vol 1: The West Country" - D StJ Thomas, pub David & Charles 1973 (4th ed)
"Somerset Railways" - R Madge, pub Dovecote Press 1984
"Somerset Railway Stations" - M Oakley, pub Dovecote Press 2002
"The West Somerset Mineral Railway" - RJ Sellick, pub David & Charles 1972 (2nd ed)
Course of the West Somerset Mineral Railway
The West Somerset Mineral Railway, constructed under an Act of 1855, was one of the more unusual of Britain's minor railways. The line was opened in stages from Watchet on the Somerset coast to Comberow, a hamlet some six miles to the south at the foot of the Brendon Hills. In order to reach the ironstone mines at the top of the hill, to serve which the line had been principally envisaged, an incline was constructed. This was 1100 yards long on a gradient of 1 in 4, lifting the railway 800ft to the top of the hill. Although not completed until 1861, the haste to despatch iron ore along the railway was such that the incline was opened to traffic in May 1858. Ore was sent to the Ebbw Vale Ironworks in South Wales, the Ebbw Vale Company being closely associated with the railway.
From the top of the incline, the railway was extended westwards in 1864 to serve other ironstone mines. But recessions in the demand for ore, due to imports of cheaper foreign ore and a general fall in production of the industry, caused a reduction in the activity on the railway after 1883. In 1898 the railway was closed, most of the locomotives and rolling stock going to Ebbw Vale. There was a brief reopening of the mines by a syndicate between 1907 and 1910, using the lower section of the railway, the incline and a yard close to the head of the incline. The westward extension was not resuscitated but remained derelict. The railway was last used between 1912 and 1914, when the Angus system of automatic train control was demonstrated on the line near Watchet. After this the railway was abandoned, being lifted in 1917-1918.
A report in 1962 stated that :
In Watchet the station house, goods shed and water tower still stand. The track bed becomes traceable immediately north of the plate girder bridge which took the line under the Great Western Railway Minehead branch. At first the WSMR, now little more than a grassy track, runs parallel to the GWR but near Washford the main line turns away to the west. Washford Station has been demolished and a modern house erected on the site, but the level crossing gates survive at the south end. The garden of a bungalow now occupies the trackbed and past this is the site of the bridge that carried the Watchet to Minehead road over the railway. The bridge has been demolished and an embankment substituted. Further south, at Torre Quarry, a decrepit footbridge still spans the railway cutting while just beyond, the crossing keeper's hut stands by the site of a level crossing. From here, the course of the line is a cart track through open fields but gradually the valley closes in and the line takes up a position on a ledge above the river.
At Lower Roadwater another crossing keeper's hut survives and is still lived in. Most of the route through Roadwater is private property, a sawmill and several houses having been built on the line. The railway used to cross the river twice before reaching Roadwater station and the main girders of both bridges survive. The station building is now a house while the goods shed is used as a garage; the station platform is intact, while the girders of a third bridge over the river still exist at the southern end of the station. For the rest of the way to Comberow the trackbed is quite clear, being used for forestry and farm access. At Comberow the stationmaster's house is occupied and the edge of the platform can be seen. Although the foot of the incline is densely overgrown, it can be bypassed and the track bed regained.
At the top of the incline the line emerges on to an embankment and levels off some 20ft higher than the surrounding fields. Some narrow, weed-choked cable ducts run under the track bed to the ruins of the old winding house. Beyond here is a demolished underbridge; all bridges have been removed on the four mile upper section. Brendon Hill station, hardly altered, is now inhabited. The course of the line to Gupworthy is easy to discern, though badly overgrown in many places. The buildings of two of the ironstone mines, at Burrow Farm and Langham Hill, still stand. At Gupworthy the chapel erected for the miners appears to be in use. Here the trackbed is a grassy lane between high hedges and a short distance further on is the terminus, now a farm.
|
)
)
)