Today I found some footpaths across the top of the Bramhope tunnel and found the shafts that were dug for the diggers to be lowered into the tunnel. Some of them were left as air vents.
The tunnel starts not long out of Horsforth station.
The first air vent appears just off the Otley Old Road.
The next is between that road and Bramhope village.
I just had to touch the brick work and feel the history absorbed within the stonework.
Theres a lot of mounds along the route, which maybe some of the earth that was dug out. It can’t possibly be all of it though. I assume most was transported away somewhere???
Lastly i got closer to the sighting tower. You can see the platform at the top and theres a window which suggests that there may be a room there.
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.
This is a memorial by the side of Otley Parish Church to the men who built the tunnel. It is a replica of the tunnel entrance at Arthington.
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
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.
This book is the sequel to the Tattooist of Auschwitz. It follows the anguishing story of a 16 year old girl who survives Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps, only to be condemned by the Russians, to 15 years in a Gulag in Siberia. It is fiction based on historical fact.
During her time in Nazi concentration camps the 16 year old girl is allowed to stay alive only by allowing the high ranking officers to abuse her. And who are we to judge? She is judged by the Russian “liberators” to be a collaborator, having slept with the enemy and endures another torturous time in another camp in the frozen wastes of Northern Russia.
The Red army may have helped bring the second world war to an end but Stalins Russia was never really one of our true allies. I’m not going to divulge the story, because you should read it, but I learnt a lot about the gulags and Russia at that time.
The Gulags were created by Stalin to rid the state of its enemies and make them work until they dropped. Stalins communism was just a different type of Nazi-ism. He wished to purge Russia of Chechens, Crimean Tartars and Volga Germans by using hard labour and starvation. Add to this Poles, Jews, Ukrainians . Then there were German prisoners of war, war criminals and Russian soldiers who had surrendered. oh and political prisoners too. All done on a far larger scale than Hitler. Over eighteen million went through the system until Stalins death in 1953. He really was a monster. They reckon 6 million died.
In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates (colloquially referred to simply as “camps”) and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union.
(To get the best out of these photos you need to look on a laptop or desktop and click to enlarge them or at least an i pad).
After a day of snow, resulting in 6 inches here and gridlock in Leeds, we had a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a walk. A little wary with my recovering ankle, that’s still very tender in certain positions, I went carefully but with snow underfoot it made it soft, so as long as I didn’t slip, I would be fine. AND I did manage to stay on my feet. A great pair of walking boots really helps. https://www.meindl.co.uk/products/womens/womens-boots/
This is the lane behind our house looking very pretty.
Digital photography is brilliant you can snap away and get rid as you wish. Gone are the days when you had to get the right roll of film in your camera, either 12x, 24,or 36x photos, then send them off by post, for development and wait with excitement, to have them returned and find that half of them are over exposed or with a thumb in the way or someones head chopped off!
And guess where I ended up again? Yes St johns Adel. It is just so picturesque.
And I found a few more interesting graves.
The first gravestone shows John Walker who died in 1822 only aged 39, his son died the year after at the age 15 and then his daughter died the same year aged just 3. Wish I’d moved the snow to see when his wife died – the poor woman.
Next Mark Shaw of Horsforth died in1 1839 aged 26. A number of the graves give information of where the occupant lived too.
Richard Atkinson of Cookridge died in 1782 aged 59. This is an older grave that I don’t think Ive found before. His son died in 1799 at only 25 years.
The last one is another old one. Fanny died in 1757 at the tender age of 13. Then her sister in 1766 at an even more tender age of 11. The brother only reached the age of 26, dying in 1775. Their mother reached the ripe old age of 72, dying in 1789 and their father reached 70 years dying in 1797.
I just find the history here fascinating and very sad and am going to delve deeper and try to find out more about these lives.
The old school house in Adel and some cottages.
I walked on down to Bedquilts Recreation Ground and got a few nice photos. Its a strange name and I haven’t found out why it is so called. Its a large area with football pitches, grass and nice mature trees. A lot of people exercise their dogs there. The snow was deep and gave my ankle and legs a work out.
Just on the last leg of my walk not far from home I was surprised to see a single Redwing bird on a hedgerow. Ive not managed to get a really good photo of a redwing and it let me get really close to it. It was the highlight of my walk.
They are beautiful thrush like bird with the red colour under the wings giving them their name. The come from Scandinavia in winter.
So we have had a few flurries of snow recently but it snowed all day yesterday. We must have had four or five inches and it makes everything look so clean and bright. It also deadens noise making everything so peaceful. Peaceful that is until all the adults get the sledges out for the kids, or at least that’s what they say! Big kids enjoy it more.
This is what I awoke to a beautiful winter wonderland.
On with the under layers , coats, scarves and hats and out I ventured for another two and a half miler to Adel church. I wanted to capture it in the snow and I never tire of that place.
Next door had built a lovely snowman and the trees looked amazing, although it was starting to melt.
The last photo is of the grave stone for the children of James and Mary Anne Staples. Starting in 1848 ,Charles died aged 5, Alfred who died in the same year, just over three months later, aged 10months. Then in 1854 Sidney died aged 4 years old. In 1869 Rooney died, aged 16. Next, Ebeneezer succumbed in 1870 at the age of 14.
O my goodness, what tragedy befell this family. I will try to find out.
So, I broke my ankle on the 17th November 2020, whilst descending, with my bike, from Ilkley Moor. I spent 6 weeks in a pot (that’s a plaster cast for those of you southerners) up to just below my knee. Non weight bearing, so I had to use crutches which was painful on the shoulders and chest muscles for a while. We were also in lockdown, due to Covid 19, so there was not a lot I could do. I occupied myself with this blog, reading, playing my guitar, watching tv and playing on my x box, but theres only so much you can take of this routine. I was so relieved to get the “pot” off on the 31st December, but his is just the start of recovery. I found my heel hurt a lot when I put weight on it and the joint was incredibly stiff, which was only to be expected. So after a few days walking around the house and finding supportive shoes/boots, I had a wander around Ilkley. Next day i tried to walk down to Adel church – a distance of 2.5 miles in total. No way! I had to stop and come home after getting a third of the way there and I was soooo slow! I had baths and did exercises and today I put on my walking boots and made it, there and back! So pleased, but it did ache a lot after. So in the bath again and gentle exercises and rest.
Ive blogged about St Johns church Adel before. Hit the link. Its not only a beautiful place but so full of history. I took a few photos of things I have not done before and found an 18th century grave. In fact there were a few graves Ive not seen before covered by undergrowth by the wall on the right hand side. I didn’t investigate them this time due to the ankle.
The photos above are taken of items that have been found within the graveyard and are all by the gate as you enter. I don’t yet have any information on the items but they look like old graves.
There is so much information to be had from graveyards but not for much longer, as most people are now cremated and ashes scattered, often with no memorial and certainly not the information that was put on gravestones of the past. Look at that last photo all from the 1700’s and so young, yet the last to die was 80! The photo in the middle at the top is of new life poking their head out of the icy ground – spring is just around the corner.
I‘ve just spent some time over the last few days correcting a lot of lost links. I think they all work now. Please let me know if you come across anything that doesn’t work. Don’t forget you can click on the photos to make them bigger coz I’m dead proud of some of them. Having trolled through so many old posts I am most proud of my photos of the barn owl eating a vole. You can see this on the BIRD page by clicking Barn Owl, believe it or not! Then the photos of Morcombe Bay at Arnside and Silverdale too. You can see these on the places page. And I’d forgotten how many different birds I’d had at my garden feeders over the years. Recently I seem to only have house sparrows, dunnocks, blackbirds and pigeons. Oh sorry, robins, great tits, blue tits, coal tits and squirrels too.
I’ve just finished this book – it only took me two days, I couldn’t put it down. It’s so well written. You can see from the blurb on the back cover what its about. Its a fabulous insight into what it must be like to experience the horrific trauma of having to flee ones home and try to find refuge and start a new life in a completely different culture and country. The mental anguish of loosing a son and the way it affects the mind. Quite harrowing but compelling.
It made me think of the mindset of some groups of people in England today and the racism and bigotry that seems to abound. If these people had to go through what refugees have to go through, I wonder what they would think then? A country as rich as ours, should be made to give shelter and comfort to those less well off. It made me realise how very very lucky I am andI just wish my country was more welcoming It makes me so ashamed of my country when I see how we herd refugees into detention/immigration centres that are worse than prisons.
I wrote this back in 2015 and things haven’t improved.
Nice local 19 mile ride. starting the directions from Adel church ride north past the church on your right and take a right past Headingley Golf Club and past York Gate Garden then left down Staircase Lane. A nice downhill until over the bridge theres quite an ascent past Adel Woods, great for mountain biking and dog walks. At the T junction with King Lane turn left and first right onto Alwoodley Lane. Gawp at all the weird and wonderful mansions all the way along this road until you meet traffic lights at the crossroads, where you carry straight on onto Wigton Lane otherwise known as millionaires row. At the T-junction at Shadwell turn left downhill and uphill turn first right.
This is a lovely quiet country road where I saw Red Kites and a Kestral. Carry straight on across the next two junctions through Scarcroft until you meet the A58 Wetherby road and turn left, ride along here for a short while and turn left at East Rigton, or you can turn sooner and go through Bardsey, making your way to Rigton Grange. At the T-junction turn right towards East Keswick. Nice pub at Bardsey incidentally, another “oldest pub in England!” The Bingley Arms. Oh and another in East Keswick too, The Duke of Wellington. After passing this pub at a right bend turn left up a quiet country lane. This eventually joins up with the A659 from Collingham to Harewood. This is the least pleasant bit of this ride as it can be a busy and fast road. However, once you reach Harewood, you will be riding off road through the Harewood estate. So at the traffic lights, straight ahead will be the gates of the Harewood estate, but don’t go through here, turn right and then second left, Church Lane, straight on through the village and straight into the estate. Muddy Boots cafe is well worth a stop.
This ride was done on my Volt Kensington pictured above. Below that is one of the stags that roam the area. follow the road until you meet a cross roads and carry straight on, over the cattle grid bear right and follow this until you reach the gate. Here, at the village of Weardly, turn left uphill. At the top follow the road round the left bend. The next uphill is a killer. I had to stop halfway and nearly fainted when I reached the top. Some fab views – see below.
This is Red Kite country. Click on the link to find out about the reintroduction of this bird, which had been driven to extinction in this country. They have spread all over the country but are most prevalent here. They are beautiful, majestic birds and I never tire of watching them soar over the county.
From here continue on the road past the New Inn , another that’s worth a stop, and keep on going straight until you arrive back where you started.
Mike and I had a long weekend in the caravan on the edge of the Wykham Forest just north of the village of Sawdon. It would be the first time that I would ride my new bike off road on trails around the forest. We stayed on a Caravan Club CL site called Granary Farm. These are small sites that only take 5 caravans. They are very quiet and are cheaper normally. This site was basically just a nice field with electric and water, which is fine for us as we have all our own facilities in our caravan. Best of all was its position between Wykham and Dalby forests. I was excited to try my bike out “off road”.
First afternoon was a quick ride around Wkyham forest. The next day I had used my OS map app “Outdoors GB”, to plan a ride from where we were through Dalby forest down to Thornton Le Dale and back = 22 miles but boy did it feel like more than that!
So the footage is from my iPhone on the handlebars of my bike, the mount is not brilliant, hence the amount of shake lol! But it gives you some idea of what the tracks were like. My arms certainly felt the vibrations. There were lots of earthworks and tumuli, dikes and barrows. Didn’t have time to stop and examine though.
I reached a junction with a road from Snainton at Cockmoor Hall (farm) and searched and eventually found the track through and beside woods at Six Dikes. This is where the fun began and I came off the bike the first time. It was very muddy and there were deep ruts and here began a steep learning curve. I couldn’t decide whether to keep in the tracks/ruts or try to ride beside them or up on a bank of grass. So I tried all of them. When my bike went from under me I was glad to have my helmet on. Undeterred I carried on and ended up having to cross an extremely rutted muddy field.
You can see that my tyres, although quite fat, have none of the knobbly bits of mountain bike tyres, which is why I found it so slippy. My bike is a hybrid so its fine for the trails that have harder ground but probably not the best for this kind of terrain.
So after this field at Stonygate Moor I bore right and down a ridge into the Dalby forest. It was a great downhill ride.
Again I’m afraid its very shaky but again it gives you some idea of what it was like. then it was down the more substantial track to Ellerburn. Along the valley to Thornton Le Dale. I did a little detour in the town and then along the main road to Wilton and turned left at Allerston up a huge, like massive, long hill. Even with my power on high, I really struggle but didn’t get off until I fell off at the top! I then joined the route back the way I had come at the muddy field, where I fell off again LOL!
I was truly knackered when I got back to the caravan but really proud of myself.
When I think back I do wonder wether I was a bit foolish to go on my own as if I had hurt myself I don’t know how Mike would have been able to come and get me. Bur I really enjoy the freedom, solitary time and adventure.
