In the first two articles about tramroad routes centred around Malinslee I have looked at the tramroads which appear on the 6″ OS Map of 1881/82 (which was published in 1880) and which were located to the West of the Stirchley Ironworks. These can be read by following the links immediately below:
Ancient Tramroads near Telford – Part 4 – Malinslee Part 1
Ancient Tramroads near Telford – Part 6 – Malinslee Part 2 – Jerry Rails …
The map below traced by Savage & Smith in The Waggon-ways and Plateways of East Shropshire, shows how extensive the network of tramroads in the area was. [1: p164] Even so, the plan is not exhaustive. We have already encountered the tramroad which served Little Eyton Colliery. This appeared in the first part of this series centred on Malinslee for which the link is provided above.
It ran along the lane shown to the North of Langleyfield Colliery on the plan below. The slag heap from Little Eyton Colliery is shown on the sketch plan.
It is important to understand that the tramroads shown on the plan below did not necessarily all exist at the same time. Savage & Smith illustrated their routes with different symbols. The solid red lines denoted lines whose position is exactly known. The lines shown by the shorter dashes are those which appear on the 1833 1″ OS Map of Shropshire. Savage & Smith note that these lines are shown scaled up from the 1″ map but without any alteration to fit the landscape which is shown in more detail on later OS Mapping. [1: p103] The longer dashed lines are tramroad routes shown on the half-inch map of the Shropshire Railway from Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton of around 1836 and which have similarly been enlarged. Savage & Smith were confident, in 1965, with some degree of certainty, that the routes shown below were in commercial use at some time, many in the period prior to the coming of the standard-gauge railways. [1: p103]
We begin this next survey by looking at the area immediately around St. Leonard’s Church. The Church is not shown on the tracing undertaken by Savage & Smith. Their traced routes have been transposed onto the 1881/82 6″ Ordnance Survey in the image below.
We start looking at the mauve line on the image above, which seems to run to St. Leonard’s Church from the North. We will follow the route Northwards to Hollinswood…
Google Earth provides a higher quality of satellite image than the NLS is able to do. This extract shows the church at the bottom of the image. The carpark area to the Northwest of the Church is where the old vicarage used to be sited. The route shown by Savage & Smith is marked in mauve. It is difficult, either from old maps or from the features still evident today to establish what this tramroad was intended to serve. The church was built in 1805. [4] This may possibly have postdated the tramroad and by its construction the then disused tramroad would have been severed?
The next length northwards is imposed first on the 1881/82 6″ Ordnance Survey [2] and then on satellite imagery from Google Earth. [Google Earth, 4th April 2021]. There is little worthy of comment, over the majority of this length the old tramroad rout has been retained as a metalled road. Towards the top of the extracts the tramroad route is shown crossing what was a more major road (Park Road) until development of Telford New Town led to roads being realigned and replaced. Park Road as shown on the 6″ Map extract can be seen as terminating just to the East of the point where the old tramway route(s) crossed it on a relatively shallow angle. [5]
Both of the older maps consulted by Savage & Smith show the same route for the old tramroad. Between Park Road that the top of this extract much of the route was lost under old slag heaps associated with mine workings which postdated the tramroad. The area is now lost under Thomas Telford School and the Land Registry. The road at the top-right of this map extract is now Caledonian Way. [6]
“Old Park Ironworks Company was started by Thomas Botfield on land leased from Isaac Hawkins Browne’s Old Park Estate. It started with two furnaces but by 1801 it had four blast furnaces in operation as well as a forge and rolling mill. By 1806 it was the largest producer of iron in Shropshire and the second largest iron producer in Britain. The Old Park works passed to the Old Park Company in 1856. This was bought by the Wellington Iron & Coal Company in 1874 but closed in 1877 when this company failed.” [8]
It should be noted that two locations in the Telford Area were, at different times, named ‘Old Park Ironworks’
The webpage introducing the Botfield Papers [11] contains the following:
“In 1815 the Old Park works consisted of four blast furnaces, a forge and associated collieries. Thereafter the business expanded considerably, as two pairs of blast furnaces at Hinksay and Stirchley, on either side of the Shropshire Canal, were brought into operation between 1825 and 1827. By 1830 the enterprise was producing 15,300 tons of pig iron a year, only slightly less than the Lilleshall company who were then the largest producers in Shropshire. In 1830 the forge at Stirchley came into operation and within the next few years two blast furnaces at Dark Lane were also completed.
The Botfield brothers, with the exception of William, had detached themselves from the day-to-day running of the ironworks, and had invested some of their handsome profits in landed property rather than ploughing it back into the family business. Thomas Botfield died in 1843, and his brother William in 1850, and control of the family business passed to their nephew Beriah, whose father, also Beriah, had died in 1813. Beriah Botfield (1807-1863) was MP for Ludlow 1840-1847, 1857-63 and a well known bibliographer who set up a private printing press at Norton Hall, Northamptonshire. The gradual decline of the Botfield family’s business was symptomatic of the Shropshire iron trade’s failure to adapt to modern methods. In 1856 the business was divided up after Beriah Botfield failed to agree terms for the renewal of the lease covering a large part of its territory. In 1877 the Old Park ironworks ceased operations, the consequent social distress being exacerbated by an outbreak of typhoid.” [11]
The location of the Old Park Brickworks and Ironworks near Hollinswood are marked on the British History Online plan below. The later Old Park Ironworks were at the location numbered ‘3’ to the immediate South of Randlay Pool on the plan.
As we continue to look at this area, it is not surprising that it is difficult to relate modern locations to older features. We are now close to the centre of Telford, an area which has been considerably re-modelled both by modern development and by opencast mining. The next plan below gives and idea of the extent of opencast mining in the 1970s. The roads shown dotted on the plan were built as the New Town developed.
The Shropshire Caving & Mining Club’s Winter Issue of 2016 [13] included another article by Ivor Brown which contained details of archeological activity in advance of the opencast mining and during its operation. Old workings were found in almost every seam, but mainly in clay and coal, although it was obvious that ironstone had been worked where available. That journal includes a few photos of the Old Park Ironworks as exposed by the mining activity in 1976.
Before continuing, it is worth stating clearly that the lines drawn on maps in this and other articles are very definitely approximate and represent the best estimates of Savage & Smith and my own interpretation of what they described in the 1960s before so much of the landscape was altered by opencast mining and subsequent development.
Having followed a tramroad route Northwards from St. Leonard’s to Hollinswood, we now turn our attention to what Savage & Smith have shown to the Southeast of St. Leonard’s and then to the East side of their traced map of the Malinslee area. …
First, we need to pick up on the tramroad indicated by the red-dashed line on the earlier images of the area close to St. Leonard’s.
The tramroad is indicated by the red-dashed line on this plan which appeared earlier in this article. The red-dashed line runs on the Northeast side of Little Eyton Colliery and appears to run under the slag heap. The length of this line shown at the top of this extract can be followed easily on the ground in the 21st century. This is not possible the further South along the line that we travel. [2]
This extract from the circa. 1840 plan of Dawley shows that tramroad running from Withy Pool adjacent to the word ‘MALINSLEE’ down to the Canal at Hinkshay Pools and running to the Northeast side of Little Eyton Colliery slag heap. There is a short canal arm shown as well. which would have provided for transshipment of loads from waggons to canal tub-boats. [9]
These next few images are my attempt to follow the line of the tramroad from near Withy Pool down towards Hinkshay.
The next few pictures follow the line from A to C on the map/satellite image above.
The first map extract below is taken from the 1881/82 6″ OS Map. It picks up the red-dashed line entering top-left. The line as drawn on this extract is that shown by Savage & Smith on their traced plan [1: p164] and it curves round to the Northeast on the Northeast side of Hinkshay Row. There seems, as the tramroad shown above approaches the canal, to be either a conflation of two tramroad routes Solid green/red and red-dashed on the map extract below) on the1840 plan of Dawley or a minor problem with the tracings undertaken by Savage & Smith which could easily be explained by the relative scales of the different plans that they refer to. As the notes below the first map extract below suggest there is a possibility that the red-dashed line shown by Savage & Smith which comes from the 1″ Ordnance Survey of 1833 is marginally out of position and when drawn on the larger scale 6″ mapping gives the discrepancy represented by the solid green/red line (my preferred route for the tramroad) as compared to the red-dashed line. On the extract below, this is further complicated by the mauve-dashed line which is that traced by Savage & Smith from the half-inch map of 1836.
A curving pathway to the East of Hinkshay Row calls into question my opinion and supports the red-dashed alignment which represents the 1833 1″ OS Map tramway alignment. Both red-dashed and mauve-dashed lines run under the spoil heap for the abandoned colliery Northeast of Hinkshay Row and so, if they are correct, must pre-date that colliery’s slag heap. There is a similarity between the various changes in alignment on the red-dashed line and the solid-red line a little to the South. I guess it has to be asked whether, given the differences in scale between different maps, these are in fact the same tramroad. We have already established that the solid-red line is an accurate representation of a tramroad. The question at stake here is whether the dashed-red line is a different route or not. The curving pathway to the Northeast of Hinkshay Row is probably the only feature on the map extract that would suggest that it is a separate route.
The light-brown tramroad line(s) are definitive, according to Savage and Smith. However the light-brown route which seems to end at Hinkshay Road/Dark Lane may well have extended across to the South of Stone Row and on beyond Wood Colliery, passing under what in 1881/2 is the extent of the Wood Colliery spoil heap. That extension can be presumed from the Savage and Smith drawn 1836 alignment which is shown here, marginally moved, from the Savage and Smith map above. We have noted elsewhere the existence of the GWR Stirchley Branch and the LNWR Coalport branch which will be the subject of other articles. We should also note the presence on the 1881/82 6″ maps of a Mineral Railway which enters this extract from the North and which was part of a network across this extract and beyond that replaced older tramroads.
On the 1881/82 6″ OS Map a tramroad is shown serving Wood Colliery. It is highlighted in light blue in the top-left of this extract. It is possible that the tramway route shown light-brown on this extract crossed or connected with this line prior to the spoil heap from the Colliery growing in size.
Note also the Old Park Ironworks which appear in the bottom-right of the extract and which were part of the Botfield empire featured in the notes earlier in this article. [1: p164][2]
The same tramroad lines approximately translated onto the ESRI satellite imagery provided by the National Library of Scotland. No annotations are provided in this case as they can bee seen on the map extract above. It is sufficient to remark that the details of tramroad alignments are difficult to relate to the Town Park in 21st century. But correlations there are and they are quite significant! [15]
In previous posts, we have considered many of the tramroads in this area. The comments made under the OS Map extract immediately above should be sufficient to highlight any details/issues. My judgement, for what it is worth, is that the solid green/red line should be given precedence over both of the lines traced by Savage & Smith. If I am correct, the tramroads which existed in this are become those shown below. …..
Walking the area, a number of the features on the map extract can be seen to still be present in 21st century in some form or other. Exploring Telford Town Park is highly recommended!
The next map extract shows the area to the North and Northeast of the extract above. …..
The same area on Google Maps. Some of the features shown on the 6″ OS map have been lost. The slag heaps remain and have been encouraged to become woodland. The Mauve and light-blue lines can still be picked out with care on the ground in the 21st century. [Google Maps]
Before looking at the area immediately around Randlay Pool (which appears on the right side of the map extract above we need to trace the route of the two tramroads shown light-blue (not on the Savage & Smith drawing [1: p164]) and mauve on the extract OS map extract above. This next extract from the 1901/2 6″ OS map shows the line of the tramway marked light-blue as still in existence alongside Wood Colliery.
The same area as shown on the OS map extract above, with the tramroad routes transferred. It can be seen that the tramroad on the West side of the image follows the route of a path in Telford Town Park. The orange line being that which served Hinkshay Colliery. Wood Colliery was perhaps 100 metres North of the last ‘l’ in ‘Campbell’. The Reservoir shown on the OS Map is now called ‘Withy Pool’. Earler mapping shows a Withy Pool much closer to St. Leonard’s Church. [Google Maps]
The following photographs show the approximate alignment of the two tramroads illustrated on the OS map extract and satellite image above. The first route begins bottom-left of the map/satellite image above. The first picture is taken a little south of the end of the orange-dashed line. …
The two old tramroad routes run immediately next to each other as they converge a little to the North. We are immediately adjacent to the location of Wood Colliery.
Having followed the orange and light-blue routes to their junction with the mauve route, we now need to return to the mauve route as it crosses the area of Wood Colliery slag-heap. It is important to bear in mind that the tramroad pre-dated the full extent of the slag-heap from Wood Colliery and although there is a 21st century footpath that seems to follow its alignment, the levels are likely to have been much different.
We have already note the extent of the colliery slag-heap on its Southeastern flank. This next photograph looks Southeast through the trees from the top of the slag-heap along the line of the ‘mauve’ tramroad.
One lovely touch on Wood Colliery waste-heap is the use that has been made of old carriage/wagon buffers as seats. They appear like mushrooms in the grass areas which surround the old tramroad routes.
The next [photo is not the best, by a long chalk as it is taken directly into the Sun
The adjacent image is an extract from a larger plan on the Dawley Heritage website [17] which shows the location of collieries in the Dawley area. St. Leonard’s Church and Little Eyton Colliery feature at the centre of the image. Comparing this with the extracts from the OS map above, it appears that the location of Wood Colliery has been confused with the colliery shown as ‘Old Colliery’ and adjacent to The White Hart Inn on the OS mapping. That marked Holywell Colliery seems to be named Spout Colliery on OS maps and collieries to the East do not appear on this extract (Wharf Colliery, Lodge Colliery and Little Dark Lance Colliery all appear on the 6″ OS map of 1881/82).
That shown as ‘Old Colliery’ on the OS Mapping close to The White Hart Inn may well have been known as ‘Hinkshay Colliery’ which is referred to in the online introduction to the ‘Botfield Papers’ held at Manchester University. [18]
Returning to the tramroad theme, it is worth noting a possible additional tramroad route which was not picked up by Savage & Smith and which also does not appear as a tramroad on the OS mapping. The extract below shows that possible route which ran between the area immediately adjacent to St. Leonard’s Church and Wood Colliery. It is suggested by the embankments at the possible junction with the tramroad shown at Wood Colliery and the straight alignment of the residual track/highway on the OS map.
The batch of photos above first follow the line to the West before turning back round to look East towards the Town Park. [My photographs, 9th August 2022]
The batch of photographs above take us along Brunel Road following our possible tramroad alignment! [My photographs, 9th August 2022]
The next map extract shows the area between Wood and Spout Collieries. The tramroad alignment which passed under the later slag heap and that shown running North-South on the West side of Wood Colliery join just to the South of Spout Colliery.
Approximately the same area as shown above but this time with the tramroads and mineral railway highlighted in light-blue, mauve and brown respectively. {Google Maps]
Wharf Colliery was owned in 1900 by the Hopley brothers. [19] According to mindat.org, Wood Colliery was owned in 1890 by the Haybridge Iron Co.; in 1895-1896 by the Stirchley Coal & Iron Co.; in 1900, again by the Haybridge Iron Co.; and in 1920 by W.T. Jo. [20] To complete the picture, Spout Colliery was owned in 1890 by the Haybridge Iron Co.; in 1895-1896 by the Stirchley Coal & Iron Co.; in 1900, again by the Haybridge Iron Co. [21]
The next map extract shows the area Northwest of Spout Colliery. …
Savage & Smith show the tramroad crossing the lane/road to the Northwest of Spout Colliery. Their tracing shows a break in the tramroad at the lane which is illustrated in the adjacent extract from their plan. [1: 164] This seems to be unlikely as their tracing to the North of the lane follows the line shown on the OS map above. A tracing error or a discrepancy in scaling would make the most logical explanation for the step in their alignment. The OS map shows a continuous alignment.
This is approximately the same area as covered by the OS map extract above. Major redevelopment has occurred.
In the top half of this image there are no features which fix the line of the tramroad and the mineral railway. The routes are traced from the mapping onto the satellite image using overlay software. From here North the lines drawn must be seen as careful estimates!
We pick up the tramroad route further North in the next extract from the 1881/82 OS map
The remainder of this old tramroad route crosses the grounds of Telford’s Land Registry and then runs underneath the West side of Telford Bridge retail park. This first extract from the satellite images shows its approximate route across the grounds of the Land Registry. The buildings of the Registry are on the bottom-left of the image, its carpark are also on the left side of this image.
In my next post I plan to look at what is discernable of the historic tramroads along the line of and in the vicinity of the later Coalport (LNWR) and Stirchley (GWR) branches
References
- R.F. Savage & L.D.W. Smith; The Waggon-ways and Plateways of East Shropshire; Birmingham School of Architecture, 1965. Original document is held by the Archive Office of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
- https://maps.nls.uk/view/101594470, accessed on 28th June 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=52.67010&lon=-2.46164&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 28th July 2022.
- http://www.dawleyheritage.co.uk/timeline/64/st-leonard-s-church-malinslee-built#:~:text=Leonard’s%20Church%20Malinslee%20built,the%20Manor%20of%20Malins%20Lee., accessed on 28th July 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=52.67492&lon=-2.46130&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 28th July 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=52.67821&lon=-2.45835&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 29th July 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=52.68131&lon=-2.45385&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- http://www.dawleyheritage.co.uk/timeline/62/old-park-ironworks-2nd-biggest-producer-of-iron-in-britain, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/salop/vol11/pp107-111, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- https://cinderloo.com/2021/01/31/account-of-the-riots-and-routes-taken-by-the-marchers-on-1st-and-2nd-february-1821-taken-from-the-contemporary-newspaper-accounts-of-cinderloo, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/0d54e8ed-1fe5-3d1e-85fb-7a61bf1efb7e, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- https://www.shropshirecmc.org.uk/below/2016_3w.pdf, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- https://www.shropshirecmc.org.uk/below/2016_4w.pdf, accessed on 30th July 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=52.68313&lon=-2.44970&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 4th August 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=52.66539&lon=-2.45022&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 3rd August 2022.
- https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=52.66954&lon=-2.46082&layers=6&b=1, accessed on 5th August 2022.
- http://www.dawleyheritage.co.uk/maps/364/map-of-dawlwy-pits-and-colleries, accessed on 8th August 2022.
- https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/special-collections/exploring/a-to-z/detail/?keyword=Botfield+Papers, accessed on 8th August 2022.
- https://www.mindat.org/loc-382801.html, accessed on 8th August 2022.
- https://www.mindat.org/loc-383040.html, accessed on 8th August 2022.
- https://www.mindat.org/loc-381639.html, accessed on 8th August 2022.
