Scaldwell is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The village's name means 'spring/stream which is shallow'. Scaldwell is tiny and has neither shops nor pubs; at the time of the 2001 census the parish had a population of 271 living in 113 households, increasing to 302 in 2011 and 304 in 2020. It has an ageing population. The nearest place for school, shop or pub is

Brixworth Brixworth is a large village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 5,162, increasing to 5,228 at the 2011 census. The village's All Saints' Church is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Loca ...

. Scaldwell has a church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. It has a Norman tower and some 13th century-features and was restored in 1863. The village has a traditional green and was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

Ironstone quarrying and the Scaldwell Tramway

The Staveley Coal and Iron Company operated a number of

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

quarries around the villages of

Hanging Houghton Hanging Houghton is a small village in West Northamptonshire in England. It is on the A508 road between Brixworth and Lamport, in the civil parish of Lamport. The villages name means 'Houghton (= hill-spur farm/settlement) on a steep slope'. ...

and Scaldwell from 1912 until 1963. The first pits lay to the east of the Scaldwell to Brixworth Road close to Scaldwell, and began producing ore in April 1913. Two separate gauge tramways transported ore from the quarries, one serving the Hanging Houghton pits. The second, longer tramway ran from pits east of Scaldwell to a depot north of the village. An aerial ropeway connected the two tramways to sidings on the

Market Harborough Market Harborough is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, in the far southeast of the county, forming part of the border with Northamptonshire. Market Harborough's population was 25,143 in 2020. It is the adm ...

to Northampton railway line. The pits were originally hand-worked, but in 1933 steam

dragline excavator A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. Draglines fall into two broad categories: those that are based on standard, lifting cranes, and the heavy units which have to be built on-site. Mo ...

s were introduced, which made the quarrying faster and more efficient. In 1914, new pits were opened near Grange Farm, a mile south of Scaldwell and the Scaldwell tramway was extended to serve them. New ore fields were leased south of Brixworth in 1939 and the tramway was further extended to reach them. The Brixworth pits continued in production until 1949 when they were abandoned and the tramway extension removed. During the Second World War, a new standard gauge branch line was laid to the Hanging Houghton quarries. Ore from those quarries was no longer carried by the aerial ropeway. The branch was extended to Scaldwell in 1954, and the aerial ropeway was abandoned. Ore was tipped from narrow to standard gauge wagons at Scaldwell. The final ironstone pits in use were a mile and a half southeast of Scaldwell at New Grange Farm. These ceased working in December 1962 and the entire system was abandoned. The narrow-gauge tramway and standard-gauge branch were removed by 1964, and the remaining pits were landscaped and returned to agricultural use. The final ironstone quarrying near Scaldwell was in the northern pit close to Lamport village. Diesel and electric quarrying machines were used and it was served by the standard-gauge tramway. It closed in 1963. The narrow-gauge tramways used steam locomotives throughout the time they operated. The

Peckett Peckett and Sons was a locomotive manufacturer at the Atlas Locomotive Works on Deep Pit Road between Fishponds and St. George, Bristol, England. Fox, Walker and Company The company began trading in 1864 at the Atlas Engine Works, St. George, ...

locomotive ''Scaldwell'' was purchased by the

Narrow Gauge Railway Society Narrow may refer to: * The Narrow, rock band from South Africa * Narrow banking, proposed banking system that would eliminate bank runs and the need for a deposit insurance * narrow gauge railway, a railway that has a track gauge narrower than th ...

when the tramway closed and moved to the

Brockham Railway Museum The Brockham Railway Museum was a narrow gauge railway based at the site of the Brockham Limeworks, near Dorking, Surrey. When it closed in 1982, the majority of the collection was moved to the Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre where it fo ...

for preservation.

Notable people

* Edward Hume (1841–1921), cricketer

References

External links

Some details of the church's architecture
* {{authority control Villages in Northamptonshire Civil parishes in Northamptonshire West Northamptonshire District