Well this post all started when I went for a drive on a sunny day in order to get out of the house. I still can’t walk far due to the recovering ankle and lockdown due to Covid19 was giving me cabin fever. So I drove round one of my bike rides that takes in Dunkeswick, Weeton, Castley and Pool in Wharfedale and noticed a good photo opportunity of the Whafedale/Arthington viaduct.
That got me doing some research about it and the construction of the Bramhope tunnel just up the road from me.
The Bramhope tunnel was built between 1845 and 1849. At the time of construction, it was one of the longest rail tunnels in the country and formed part of the ambitious Leeds and Thirsk Railway, that was designed to open up trade, between the burgeoning economies of West Yorkshire and the North East.
The proposed route faced several major obstacles, but perhaps none was greater than the ridge that lies between Airedale and Wharfedale, that required the building of the 2.138-mile (3.441 km) tunnel, that passes under the village of Bramhope, to link Horsforth with the Arthington Viaduct that takes the line over the River Wharfe to Harrogate and beyond. There was 20000 lines of track for the tunnel which was 25ft high and a depth of of 290ft.
The Navvies who did this back breaking arduous work were lowered down airshafts by bucket, worked by hand using pick axes and shovels in dark dank conditions with fear of flooding, landslips, falls, explosions and collapse. On a wage of 20 to 24 shillings a week; tunnellers earned 6 shillings a day.
Two sighting towers were built for the engineers to keep the line true, then from 20 October 1845 twenty shafts were sunk to enable access for tunnelling. Tunnelling started after the foundation stone was laid at the bottom of No. 1 airshaft in July 1846. The separate diggings first joined up into one long tunnel on 27 November 1848, and it was completed in summer 1849.
Above is one of the sighting towers which remains adjacent to Otley Old Road opposite the Bramhope Parish cemetery.
200 temporary wooden huts were constructed in the field opposite the parish graveyard on the old Otley Rd for the men and their families. Huts were home to up to 17 people! As the tunnel digging was done in 12 hour shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you had in many cases the men sleeping ‘box and cox’ style, so as one man rolled out of his bed to begin his shift, another man rolled into it at the end of his. Alongside the residential huts were offices, stonemason yards, joiner’s shops, explosive stores, stables, coal stores, saw mills and workshops for the brickworks. Records show that some of the workforce included, 188 quarrymen, 102 stonemasons, 732 tunnel men, 738 labourers, 18 carpenters, as well as around 400 horses. This workforce was made up of farm labourers from Yorkshire Dales, North East England, East Anglia, and the Fenlands as well as Scotland and refugees from Ireland.
Ale and porter were sold regularly around the huts. However a decision by the company to stop this in an effort to increase productivity resulted in uproar from the workforce.
June 1846 saw a fight break out at Wescoe Hill cutting. Joseph Midgely the Railroad Inspector had to call in reinforcements to subdue 300 drunken navvies and the original resident force of one police inspector and one constable had to be increased.
Inspector Midgely’s reports are very illuminating, he noted that the masons, mostly local men, were quiet and well behaved, but difficulties occurred with those living in the rather overcrowded huts. Midgely spent a lot of time on site, in and out of the workers homes and workplaces. To stop children running wild Midgely visited every home on site and listed the number of children within who could attend school. There were 221 children, but the village school, opened on Eastgate in 1790 already had 40 children attending and only 10 vacancies. This is before the 1870 Elementary Education Act came into force so there was no legal requirement for children to be in school, but they were definitely in the way. Midgley estimated that for an expenditure of £20 another 40 spaces could be created. In 1847 a grant of £110 was made to the school.
23 men are know to have died. This was mainly due to flooding and collapses.
It is an amazing feat of civil engineering, one that played a large part in the industrial successes of Leeds as a city and one that we are still using today.
Then theres the Arthington/Wharfedale Viaduct over the River Wharfe
- Span of arch: 60 ft (18.2 m)
- Rise of arch: 21 ft (6.4 m)
- Greatest height: 90 ft (27 m)
- Lowest height: 60 ft (18 m)
- Length of viaduct: 1510 ft. (460.2 m)
- Width of roadway: 30 ft (9.1 m)[2]
- curve some 500 yards (460 m) in length, with 21 semi-circular arches
- 50,,000 tons of stone
Below are exerts from newspapers at the time, which give an insight into what it was like working on the tunnel and viaduct.
York Herald Sept 1846 Engineers Report
Bramhope contract – This contract extends from Carr – bridge to a point to the North side of Wescoe Hilll in the township of Weeton, being a distance of six miles. The principal works upon the railway are included in this contract. These consist of the tunnel under Bramhope Ridge, and the viaduct and other works on the vale of The Wharfe. Mr James Bray is also the contractor for third division of the line. Sixteen shafts are being put down, and several of them are sunk to the level of the tunnel and part of the tunnel itself formed. When these shafts are all completed the contractor will have it in his power to work from thirty two faces at the same time. The work is being carried on night and day and every exertion is made to have the works completed in the time specified. As respects the viaduct the North abutment is completed and the South abutment is about fifteen feet above the foundations. Five of the piers are completed to the level of the spring of the arch, and a considerable quantity of materials intended for the different parts of the work are upon the ground. One of the coffer dams for one of the two piers to be erected in the river Wharfe, has been completed. A considerable amount of stuff has also been laid out in the embankment. The drift-way of the short tunnel under Wescoe Hill has also been completed and the strata ascertained to be exceedingly favourable. The strata of the Bramhope tunnel is also favourable, so far as it has been ascertained, but the flow of water is more copious than was anticipated. Whilst the tunnel was under construction 1,563,480,000 gallons of water were pumped out.
Some of the bridges are completed and others in a very advanced state, and upon the whole the works upon this division whether considered with reference to the progress made, or the quality of the work, is satisfactory to me and very creditable to Mr. Bray the contractor.
During the last month there were about 2000 workmen and 300 horses employed besides those employed on the line in providing and bringing forward materials.
Bradford and Wakefield Observer 21st Oct. 1847, Fall of an Arch at the Wharfdale Viaduct – Two Lives Lost
Considerable sensation was felt throughout Wharfdale on Tuesday morning last, owing to an alarm of several workmen having been killed by the fall of one of the arches of the Wharfdale viaduct of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway. The report as the fatality connected with the accident was, however somewhat exaggerated. The loss of life was not so great as was reported. Two young men only, named William Drake and James Verity fell a sacrifice.
The Wharfdale viaduct of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway is situate about a mile east of Pool and lies between Bramhope and the little village of Castley; the village of Arthington lying a short distance on the east of the viaduct. The valley at this point is a wide expanse; there being a distance of at least a mile and a half between the summit on the one side of the valley and that on the other The line of railway stretching from one side of the valley to the other is a high embankment nearly completed, meeting at each end of the extensive viaduct of 21 arches, in the lowest point of the valley. Workmen are busy at the “tip” of each embankment, which rises perhaps 50 feet and on each also a locomotive engine continually plies on the rails bringing from behind the distant hills on either side long wagon trains of ballast with which to fill up the short spaces between the ends of the embankment and the viaduct. The viaduct, as we have said, consists of 21 arches of various heights. Six on the south side or on the side nearest Bramhope, are already completed; the “centres” or supporters having been removed from three, the other three having, although just finished, the centres beneath them. Centres have also been placed beneath other three arches – Nos. 7, 8, 9, and the seventh arch was in the process of being quioned on Tuesday morning last, when it fell. Only a few stones had been placed on the 8th and 9th arches. The piers of the remaining twelve arches are all complete, but stand without centres; in fact, the mode seems to be to remove one at a time, three centres which have been standing during the time, other three arches have been completing, to the alternate three tiers or archways, and accordingly the centres beneath arches 7,8 and 9, have been recently removed from the first three arches; the next three keeping their centres till Nos. 7,8 and 9 are also finished. The 5th, 6th and 7th arches across the Wharfe, their piers rising from its bed, with a span of 60 feet and at the height of 70 feet above the surface of the water.
The 7th arch, which is 30 feet in width, was in process of being quoined on Tuesday morning. The key-stones had been applied to about 20 feet of arch, the mortar had been spread for the remaining 10 feet of key-stone, which had been first tried in the bed and found to fit the place for which it was designed. Some ten or twelve men were engaged on the top of the arch. This was a little before eleven o’clock. At this moment, however, a loud crash, as if from the breaking of timber was heard and in a moment Mr. Armytage Fairburn, the superintendent of the workmen, quickly ordered the men to flee for safety. The destruction, however was instantaneous; and before the bulk of the workmen could clamber from the archway, the centre beams gave way with a loud and terrible crash, and both the timber and the greater portion of the arch fell into the bed of the river. Two of the workmen, James Verity and Wiliam Drake, fell down with the stones and timber; one being at the top of the arch and the other on the “Golliah”, below the arch. The poor fellows were, at a short distance, observed falling with outspread arms to instant death.
Verity fell on his head against a large stone in the bed of the river and Drake fell, almost buried beneath stones and timber. When taken up, the leg of Verity was severed from his body; and the head of Drake was smashed to atoms. What was exceedingly remarkable is that the side of the arch which had been quioned alone fell, the other, the unquioned portion of it, a very narrow strip, remaining to span the way in a rude, broken and rickety condition! From that cracked and narrow archway, was left suspended one side of the “Golliah” a sort of ladder by which the workmen decended from the top to the gantry, or scaffolding beneath – and two workmen named Stephen Smith and James Murphy, were on the Golliah at the moment the other side of the arch fell. The poor fellows escaped from their perilous position in tremor and consternation that can be well imagined; proceeding up the ladder and across the remnant of the arch: The piece of the arch remaining is on the east side. The fear at the moment was that the arches adjoining were falling; but the rest, with their piers, happily remained in a firm position. They did not seem to have sustained any injury by the accident.
The loud and terrible crash was heard at a great distance and in the few minutes the temporary bridge over the river and beneath the fallen arch, was crowded with a large number of people and, during the day as report of the event spread, the numbers visited the site from various parts of the hills and the valley.
The bodies were, during the afternoon, removed to the house of Mr. Samuel Rhodes of the Malt Shovel, Castley. Verity was first removed for he was more readily obtained than Drake, who was partly covered with stone and timber. Both Verity and Drake are single men; the first being 22 years of age and a native of Otlley, the second being 21 and a native of Castley. The parents of both are living. The subcontractors under Mr. James Bray on this part of the line, Messrs. Garside and Parker, evince deep sympathy for the friends of the unfortunate men.
Workmen were yesterday employed in removing the stones and broken rafters from the bed of the river and little knots of people continued to arrive during the morning for the purpose of inspecting this scene of affecting fatility.
The inquest will be held at ten o’clock this morning before Mr. Brown Coroner of Skipton, at the Malt Shovel Inn, at Castley.
