Furzebrook Railway

Furzebrook Railway
	Swanage Railway overpass.
Locale	England
Dates of operation	c.1840–1957
Successor	Abandoned
Track gauge	c.4 ft (1,219 mm) (1840); 2 ft 8 in (813 mm) (1866)
Length	3.5 miles (5.6 km)
Headquarters	Furzebrook

Last updated June 03, 2019

The Furzebrook Railway, also known as the Pike Brothers' Tramway, was a narrow gauge industrial railway on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It was built by the Pike Brothers, to take Purbeck Ball Clay from their clay pits near Furzebrook and West Creech to a wharf at Ridge on the River Frome.

An industrial railway is a type of railway that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics or a military site. In regions of the world influenced by British Railway culture and management practices, they are often referred to as tramways. Industrial railways may be connecting the site to public freight networks through sidings, isolated or located entirely within a served property.

The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north. Its western boundary is less well defined, with some medieval sources placing it at Flower's Barrow above Worbarrow Bay. According to writer and broadcaster Ralph Wightman, Purbeck "is only an island if you accept the barren heaths between Arish Mell and Wareham as cutting off this corner of Dorset as effectively as the sea." The most southerly point is St Alban's Head. Its coastline is suffering from erosion.

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

History

Clay Merchant Joseph Pike created his firm around 1760 in Chudleigh in Devon, but it was his son William Pike (born 1762) who started a branch of the firm in Purbeck. He signed a contract with Wedgwood in 1791. Originally the output was taken by horse to Wareham, from where it was taken by barge on the River Frome to Poole Harbour. William's sons (William Joseph and John William) took over the business and formed the company as Pike Bros. Wedgwood's success increased demand so much that the horses struggled to keep pace. The nearest competitor, Benjamin Fayle at nearby Norden, had built Dorset's first railway - the Middlebere Plateway to take his clay to the south shore of Poole Harbour in 1806. Around 1840 the Pike Brothers William Joseph and John William followed suit by building the Furzebrook Railway to Ridge, about half a mile downstream from Wareham. The line was engineered with a continual downhill gradient, and loaded clay wagons were run by gravity, with the empty wagons being hauled back by horses. To facilitate this, some wagons were equipped with sledge brakes acting directly on the rail. The gauge of the railway as built is believed to be around 4 ft (1,219 mm).^[1]

Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, commonly known as Wedgwood, is a fine china, porcelain, and luxury accessories company founded on 1 May 1759 by English potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood. In 1987, Wedgwood merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an Ireland-based luxury brands group. The main assets of Waterford Wedgwood were purchased in 2009 by KPS Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, and the group became known as WWRD Holdings Limited, an abbreviation for "Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton". In July 2015, it was acquired by Fiskars Corporation, a Finnish consumer goods company.

Wareham is a historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles (13 km) southwest of Poole.

A barge is a flat-bottomed ship, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and must be towed or pushed by towboats, canal barges or towed by draft animals on an adjacent towpath. Barges contended with the railway in the early Industrial Revolution, but were outcompeted in the carriage of high-value items due to the higher speed, falling costs and route flexibility of railways.

William Joseph Pike met with George Stephenson in Birmingham and became convinced that way forward lay in the excellent economics of steam railways. In 1865 the Pike Brothers purchased the first steam locomotive (Primus) and by this date the gauge had been narrowed to 2 ft 8 in (813 mm).^[2] By this time, the original workings at the "Blue Pool" in Furzebrook were worked out, and the railway was diverted to the west at its upper end, and extended with several branches serving clay pits at Povington, Cotness, Greenspecks and Creech Grange.^[1]

When it opened in 1885, the London and South Western Railway standard gauge line from Wareham to Swanage simply passed over the Furzebrook Railway, with no connection. However, in 1902, interchange sidings were constructed at Furzebrook to allow clay to be shipped out by main line rail. A new locomotive shed and workshops were built at the interchange point.^[2]

The London and South Western Railway (LSWR) 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.

The Swanage Railway is a railway branch line from near Wareham, Dorset to Swanage, Dorset, England, opened in 1885 and now operated as a heritage railway.

Even after steam locomotives were introduced, gravity propulsion was not entirely abandoned. Up to the second world war, a well known sight was a single wagon train carrying clay pit workers back to their homes in Ridge in this way. The line terminated at the Swanage Railway branch, with the line to Ridge being removed by the military. In 1955 road transport started to be used to transport the clay, and the last use of the Furzebrook Railway was in 1957.^[1]

Locomotives

The locomotives used by the railway include:^[1]^[3]^[4]

Name	Builder	Type	Date	Works number	Notes
Primus	Belliss and Seeking	0-4-2 WT	1866		Converted to a stationary winding engine by 1888.
Secundus	G. E. Belliss and Co. ^[2]	0-6-0 WT	1874		In use until 1955, and then displayed in the now defunct Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry until 2000. Is now displayed in the Swanage Railway museum at Corfe Castle station.
Tertius	Manning Wardle	0-6-0 ST	1886	999	In 1951 the boiler from Fayle's Tramway engine Tiny was fitted, giving this engine a top heavy look as the firebox was too wide to fit through the frames.
Quartus	Fowler	0-4-2 WT	1889		Scrapped in 1934.
Quintus	Manning Wardle	0-4-0 ST	1914	1854	In use until 1956, scrapped in 1958. Nameplate is preserved in NGRM
Sextus	Peckett	0-6-0 ST	1925	1692	In use until 1956, scrapped in 1958.
Septimus	Peckett	0-4-2 ST	1930	1808	Purchased by the North Somerset Light Railway in 1955 but never used. Scrapped in 1962.
	Simplex	4w DM			Diesel locomotive obtained second hand in 1951.

Remains

The line's engine shed at Ridge still exists, and is a listed building. The route of the line from Ridge to Furzebrook can be traced on the ground and on maps. As noted above, the steam locomotive Secundus has survived.

A weighbridge building of similar design to the Ridge engine shed also survives at Furzebrook Works, adjacent to the former Furzebrook Road level crossing.

Related Research Articles

The River Frome is a river in Dorset in the south of England. At 30 miles (48 km) long it is the major chalkstream in southwest England. It is navigable upstream from Poole Harbour as far as the town of Wareham.

Corfe Castle is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. It is the site of a ruined castle of the same name. The village and castle stand over a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The village lies in the gap below the castle, and is some eight kilometres south-east of Wareham, and the same distance west of Swanage. Both the current main A351 road from Lytchett Minster to Swanage and the Swanage Railway thread their way through the gap and the village.

Purbeck was a local government district in Dorset, England. The district was named after the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula that forms a large proportion of the district's area. However it extended significantly further north and west than the traditional boundary of the Isle of Purbeck along the River Frome. The district council was based in the town of Wareham, which is itself north of the River Frome.

Church Knowle is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck in the county of Dorset in the south of England.

Swanage railway station is a railway station located in Swanage, on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. Originally the terminus of a London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) branch line from Wareham, the line and station were closed by British Rail in 1972. It has since reopened as a station on the Swanage Railway, a heritage railway that currently runs from Norden station just north of Corfe Castle to Swanage station. It now also runs to Wareham on certain services, but not on regular services due to signalling problems.

Herston Halt railway station is a railway station located at Herston near Swanage, on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It is an intermediate station on the Swanage Railway, a heritage railway that currently operates from Swanage to Norden.

Harman's Cross railway station is a railway station located in the village of Harman's Cross, on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It is an intermediate station on the Swanage Railway, a heritage railway that currently operates from Swanage to Norden.

Corfe Castle railway station is a railway station located in the village of Corfe Castle, in the English county of Dorset.

Norden railway station is a railway station located one mile to the north of the village of Corfe Castle, on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It is situated on the Swanage Railway, a heritage railway that operates over the former London and South Western Railway line from Wareham to Swanage. Norden is the northern terminus of the railway's steam service from Swanage, and an intermediate stop on the railway's diesel hauled service that connects Swanage with the national rail network at Wareham station.

The Middlebere Plateway, or Middlebere Tramway, was a horse-drawn plateway on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. One of the first railways in southern England and the first in Dorset, the plateway was built by a wealthy Irish Merchant based in London Benjamin Fayle, to take Purbeck Ball Clay from his pits near Corfe Castle to a wharf on Middlebere Creek in Poole Harbour, a distance of some 3.5 miles (5.6 km).

Purbeck Ball Clay is a concentration of ball clay found on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset.

Ridge is a village in the English county of Dorset. It is situated on the south bank of the River Frome, about half a mile due south east of the town of Wareham.

The Swanage Pier Tramway was a narrow gauge tramway in the port town of Swanage, in the English county of Dorset. It opened about 1858 and closed in the 1930s.

Some industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man were primarily built to serve quarrying, mining, and similar industries. Some of these narrow-gauge railways offered passenger services for employees or workmen, but they did not run public passenger trains. They are listed by the primary industry they served.

Furzebrook is a small village on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Wareham and 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Corfe Castle, and is in the civil parish of Church Knowle.

This article is about the rolling stock of the Swanage Railway.

The Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum exists to preserve and interpret the historic extractive industries in ball clay mining in the Isle of Purbeck. The museum is located adjacent to Norden station on the Swanage Railway and is open from the end of March to the end of September on weekends, some weekdays and Bank Holidays.

Roger Wakeley Kidner was a railway enthusiast and noted publisher whose imprint, The Oakwood Press, published many of the earliest books on British narrow-gauge railways.

References

1 2 3 4 Kidner, R.W. (2000). The Railways of Purbeck (Third ed.). The Oakwood Press. pp. 69–79. ISBN 0-85361-557-8.
1 2 3 Dan Quine (September 2015). "Furzebrook's Clay Hauling Locos". Narrow Gauge World. Atlantic Publishing.
↑ Peters, Ivo (1976). The Narrow Gauge Charm of Yesterday: A Pictorial Tribute. The Oxford Publishing Company. ISBN 0-902888-65-X.
↑ "The Furzebrook Railway". The Purbeck Mineral & Mining Museum. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 8 August 2007.

Bibliography

Peters, Ivo (1976). The Narrow Gauge Charm of Yesterday: A Pictorial Tribute. The Oxford Publishing Company. ISBN 0-902888-65-X.
Kidner, R.W. (2000). The Railways of Purbeck (Third ed.). The Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-85361-557-8.

External links

Purbeck Mineral & Mining Museum page on the Furzebrook Railway

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[trop-69-79-1] 1 2 3 4 Kidner, R.W. (2000). The Railways of Purbeck (Third ed.). The Oakwood Press. pp. 69–79. ISBN 0-85361-557-8.

[Quine-2] 1 2 3 Dan Quine (September 2015). "Furzebrook's Clay Hauling Locos". Narrow Gauge World. Atlantic Publishing.

[tngcoy-3] Peters, Ivo (1976). The Narrow Gauge Charm of Yesterday: A Pictorial Tribute. The Oxford Publishing Company. ISBN 0-902888-65-X.

[pmmmgfr-4] "The Furzebrook Railway". The Purbeck Mineral & Mining Museum. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 8 August 2007.