The Lady Wimborne Bridge (London and South Western Railway Bridge 77) is a former railway bridge built in 1853, and now a listed building. Its highly ornate design reflects the power of landowners over British railway companies in the mid-nineteenth century. Built shortly after the railway came to the town of Wimborne in Dorset, England, it is now a Grade II listed structure. [1]
Although the Southampton and Dorchester Railway through Wimborne was authorized before Sir John Guest, 1st Baronet of Dowlais (one of the greatest iron founders of the time, his ironworks being situated in Dowlais, South Wales) took ownership of Canford Manor in 1846, [2] later negotiations with the company (of which Guest was a director) led after his death in 1852 to the replacement of the original structure with another over what became the carriage drive to the house. [3] The bridge was until recently attributed in the on-line version of the official listing to Charles Barry Jr., the highly regarded English architect of the mid to late 19th century, and eldest son of Sir Charles Barry. [4] However the latter was responsible for the extensive alterations to the manor around the time of the bridge’s construction and was in fact the designer. [5]
The bridge is probably named after the first Lady Wimborne (1847-1927), although it was her mother-in-law, Lady Charlotte Guest, Sir John's wife, who was responsible for financing the bridge's construction around 1853-54, after her husband died. [6] It is not clear when the bridge became known by its present name: contemporary newspaper reports from the 1850s do not identify it in this way.
The last train passed over the bridge on 3 May 1977, following the recovery of equipment from Wimborne station which had just closed to all traffic.
Although the railway is long gone, steep steps allow pedestrians to climb the embankment to the top and follow a footpath to the river or, in the other direction, along an informal path towards the site of the former Wimborne Junction and engine shed. Unfortunately the informative interpretation board located on the ground by the bridge has been removed.
The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Starting as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in Hampshire and Berkshire, including Portsmouth and Reading. In the grouping of railways in 1923 the LSWR amalgamated with other railways to create the Southern Railway.
Sir Josiah John Guest, 1st Baronet, known as John Josiah Guest, was a Welsh engineer and entrepreneur.
Viscount Wimborne, of Canford Magna in the County of Dorset, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest, later Lady Charlotte Schreiber, was an English aristocrat who is best known as the first publisher in modern print format of The Mabinogion which is the earliest prose literature of Britain. Guest established The Mabinogion as a source literature of Europe, claiming this recognition among literati in the context of contemporary passions for the Chivalric romance of King Arthur and the Gothic movement. The title Guest used derived from a mediaeval copyist error already established in the 18th century by William Owen Pughe and the London Welsh societies.
Ivor Bertie Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne, 2nd Baronet, DL was a Welsh industrialist and a member of the prominent Guest family.
Dulverton is a small town and civil parish in the heart of West Somerset, England, near the border with Devon. The town has a population of 1,408. The parish includes the hamlets of Battleton and Ashwick which is located approximately 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north west of Dulverton. To the west of the hamlet lies Ashwick House, built in the Edwardian style in 1901. Also nearby is the estate of Northmoor, formerly a seat of Sir Frederick Wills,1st Baronet of Northmoor, one of the four Wills Baronetcys, and the founders of the Imperial Tobacco Company. In 1929 Sir Frederick's son & heir, Sir Gilbert Wills, 2nd Baronet, was raised to the peerage as Baron Dulverton, whose principal seat was at Batsford Park, near Batsford, Gloucestershire.
Sully is a village in the community of Sully and Lavernock, in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales lying on the northern coast of the Bristol Channel, midway between the towns of Penarth and Barry and 7 miles southwest of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff.
Colonel George Thomas Clark was a British surgeon and engineer. He was particularly associated with the management of the Dowlais Iron Company. He was also an antiquary and historian of Glamorgan.
Culham is a village and civil parish in a bend of the River Thames, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Abingdon in Oxfordshire.
The Castleman Trailway is a footpath in Southern England. Portions of the trailway are also a cyclepath but the middle section from East Wimborne to the River Allen bridge is not cyclable.
The Dowlais Ironworks was a major ironworks and steelworks located at Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales. Founded in the 18th century, it operated until the end of the 20th, at one time in the 19th century being the largest steel producer in the UK. Dowlais Ironworks were the first business to license the Bessemer process, using it to produce steel in 1865. Dowlais Ironworks was one of the four principal ironworks in Merthyr. The other three were Cyfarthfa, Plymouth, and Penydarren Ironworks. In 1936 Dowlais played a part in the events leading to the abdication crisis of Edward VIII, when the King visited the steelworks and was reported as saying that "these works brought these men here. Something must be done to get them back to work", a statement which was seen as political interference. The steelworks finally closed in 1987.
Ringwood is a closed railway station in the county of Hampshire, England which served the town of Ringwood. It lay on the former Southampton and Dorchester Railway, the original main line from a connection with the London and South Western Railway at Southampton through Brockenhurst to Dorchester.
The Westport Canal was built in the late 1830s to link Westport and Langport in Somerset, England. It was part of a larger scheme involving improvements to the River Parrett above Burrow Bridge. Langport is the point at which the River Yeo joins the River Parrett and the intention was to enable trade via the port at Bridgwater. It remained in use until the 1870s, but closed when the Somerset Drainage Commissioners took over control of the River Parrett. Despite a petition against closure by local people, the Commissioners ruled that navigation of the canal must cease due to their interpretation of the Act which gave them control of it, leaving the canal to serve as a drainage channel since 1878.
The Southampton and Dorchester Railway was an English railway company formed to join the named towns, with hopes of forming part of a route from London to Exeter. It received Parliamentary authority in 1845 and opened in 1847. It was promoted by Charles Castleman of Wimborne and became known as Castleman's Corkscrew because of the meandering route it followed.
The Guest family is a British family that has been prominent in business and politics since the 18th century. It was involved in the British iron and steel industry, particularly the Dowlais Ironworks in Wales, which later became part of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds. Hereditary titles held by members of the family include Baron Wimborne, Baron Ashby St Ledgers and Viscount Wimborne, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Wimborne was a railway station in Wimborne Minster in the county of Dorset in England. Open from 1 June 1847 to 2 May 1977, it was sited just north of the River Stour in what is still Station Road. Built for the Southampton and Dorchester Railway, the station was operated from the start by the London and South Western Railway, which took over ownership in 1848. It was then operated by the Southern Railway (1923–47) and from 1948 by the Southern Region of British Railways which traded as British Rail from 1965.
Broadstone was a railway station in the northern part of the Borough of Poole in the county of Dorset in England. It opened in 1872 under the name of New Poole Junction and closed to passengers in 1966 and to goods in 1969. Between these dates there were several changes of name for a station which at its height provided a suburb of Poole with four substantial platforms and a goods yard. A prominent feature of the station was the large footbridge needed to span the four running lines.
Dowlais is a village and community of the county borough of Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales. At the 2011 census the electoral ward had a population of 6,926, The population of the Community being 4,270 at the 2011 census having excluded Pant. Dowlais is notable within Wales and Britain for its historic association with ironworking; once employing, through the Dowlais Iron Company, roughly 5,000 people, the works being the largest in the world at one stage.
St Giles House is located at Wimborne St Giles in East Dorset in England, just south of Cranborne Chase. It is the ancestral seat of the Ashley-Cooper family, which is headed by the Earl of Shaftesbury. The estate covers over 5,500 acres (22 km2).
William Menelaus was a Scottish-born mechanical engineer, who made his name and fortune as the works manager at the Dowlais Ironworks in South Wales.