The Furzebrook Railway, also known as the Pike Brothers' Tramway, was a
narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...
industrial
Industrial may refer to:
Industry
* Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry
* Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems
* Industrial city, a city dominate ...
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
on the
Isle of Purbeck
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 no ...
in the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
county of
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
. It was built by the
Pike Brothers, to take
Purbeck Ball Clay
Purbeck Ball Clay is a concentration of ball clay found on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset.
Geology
The main concentration of ball clay in Dorset is to the north of the Purbeck Hills centred on Norden. Ball clays are sedimenta ...
from their clay pits near
Furzebrook
Furzebrook is a small village on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is about south of Wareham and northwest of Corfe Castle, and is in the civil parish of Church Knowle.
The name Furzebrook derives from t ...
and
West Creech to a
wharf
A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths (mooring locatio ...
at
Ridge on the
River Frome.
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
Wedgwood is an English fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapid ...
in 1791. Originally the output was taken by horse to
Wareham, from where it was taken by
barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...
on the River Frome to
Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley (ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being t ...
. 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
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
, 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 .
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 .
[ 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.]
When it opened in 1885, the London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...
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.[
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.]
Locomotives
The locomotives used by the railway include:
Remains
The line's engine shed at Ridge still exists, and is a listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
. 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
A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...
.
See also
*British industrial narrow gauge railways
British industrial narrow-gauge railways are narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man that were primarily built to serve one or more industries. Some offered passenger services for employees or workmen, but they did not run p ...
References
Bibliography
*
*{{cite book , title = The Railways of Purbeck , publisher = The Oakwood Press , last = Kidner , first = R.W. , edition = Third , year = 2000 , isbn = 0-85361-557-8
External links
Purbeck Mineral & Mining Museum page on the Furzebrook Railway
Isle of Purbeck
Early British railway companies
Industrial railways in England
Pre-grouping British railway companies
Rail transport in Dorset
2 ft 6 in gauge railways in England
Railway lines opened in 1840
Railway lines closed in 1957
Horse-drawn railways
4 ft gauge railways in England