Great British Railway Journeys

by Charlie Bunce

  However, the outlook was not as rosy as the railway operators had hoped. The Chester to Holyhead Railway Company invested heavily in the route in anticipation of also winning the mail shipping contract to Dublin, but ultimately that went instead to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. Consequently the company struggled to get on a forward foot and was duly taken over by the London & North Western Railway Company in 1859.

  Although the line was built to carry the mail, this historic railway brought change to all kinds of businesses along the route. We would be visiting some of them, but we decided to begin our journey further south, in the undulating countryside of Herefordshire, before joining the historic mail route in Cheshire.

  Our starting point was Ledbury, a picturesque market town to the west of the Malvern Hills. Ledbury is best known today for its fine black and white timber-framed buildings, but Bradshaw describes it as a place ‘remarkable for its manufacture of rope, twine and also cider and perry’. Perry is an alcoholic drink similar to cider but made from pears. One of the oldest commercial perry producers is still in operation just outside town.

  The tubular Britannia Bridge was built to carry trains heading from Chester to Holyhead across The treacherous Menai Straits.

  SSPL/Getty Images

  Cider apples unloaded at a Bulmer’s factory in 1957. the company has profited from the resurgence in popularity of pear cider in recent years.

  SSPL/Getty Images

  Helen Thomas’s family have been making perry for 170 years and now sell a staggering 28 million pints per year. It was originally made for private consumption – like cider, it was traditionally part of labourers’ wages in rural areas – though some was sold at the farm gate. Helen’s great-grandfather, Henry Weston, began making it on a larger scale at his farm in Much Marcle, having noticed the growing popularity of drinks imported from across the British Empire.

  When the railways came, Henry realised the potential for distributing his perry and started to produce it commercially. As the train network expanded through Herefordshire, Henry’s business grew and he began processing and bottling other growers’ pears. It wasn’t long before Weston’s perry was being sold all over the country.

  Perry pears aren’t the same as pears grown for eating. Furthermore each variety of perry pear has a different flavour. At Weston’s they are using the same varieties – and often from the same trees – as Helen’s great-grandfather in the late nineteenth century.

  Another reason for the distinctive taste of Weston’s perry is the way it is made. Helen still uses three enormous vats which Henry Weston bought years ago. The largest, known affectionately as Pip, holds around 40,000 gallons. Helen explained that, much like whisky, there are different grades of perry, along with single varieties and blends. The perry of Bradshaw’s day was a flat drink, but later bubbles were added, giving it a similar quality to champagne.

  Mention perry, and most people haven’t heard of it until you mention its branded names like Babycham and Lambrini. But after being out of fashion for decades, it seems as though perry’s fortunes are changing. Its beefier brother, pear cider, has become one of the trendiest drinks of the twenty-first century – while some maintain that perry and pear cider are in fact the same thing.

  MENTION PERRY, AND MOST PEOPLE HAVEN’T HEARD OF IT UNTIL YOU MENTION ITS BRANDED NAMES LIKE BABYCHAM AND LAMBRINI

  From Ledbury, our next train took us west towards Hereford along what Bradshaw described as one of the most picturesque lines in the country. It still is today, and as you speed through the rich green landscape it seems to encapsulate the very essence of the English countryside.

  The reason for our next stop was to search out a local breed of cattle. Familiar for its white face and rich brown coat, and much admired by Bradshaw, Hereford cattle had become one of the country’s most popular breeds by the nineteenth century. The Watkins family has been farming Hereford stock for five generations. Standing beside one of the many branch lines closed in the 1960s, David Watkins and son George explained the enormous impact the railways had on farming in Herefordshire. Their arrival meant that George’s ancestors’ cattle could go straight from market to anywhere in the country in a matter of hours. It wasn’t long before three trains a day were leaving Hereford station, all carrying cattle to London. They were also exported across the globe, and today the largest producers of Hereford beef are the United States and Uruguay.

  The recent ‘mad cow’ and foot and mouth disasters decimated beef farming in the UK, but there has been a steady domestic resurgence, David said, during the last 10 years. Known for its succulent meat marbled with fat, the Hereford breed has become the product of choice for discerning customers. At the Watkins’ Hereford hotel beef is hung for 25 days in fridges to tenderise the meat. As it gradually loses water, the taste is intensified.

  One of the main reasons for the excellence of Hereford beef is the life these cattle lead, grazing in the fields. A diet of grass has now been proved to produce meat with a longer shelf life, a better colour and a delicious flavour, as well as containing an essential fatty acid. We also learnt that Herefords are probably descended from a Roman breed.

  While we were in Hereford we wanted to find out more about something to which Bradshaw, in the entry for Hereford Cathedral, gave one short line: ‘A curious Saxon map of the world is in the library.’ The library is the biggest chained library in the world, and the map, of course, is one of Britain’s most important medieval artefacts, the Mappa Mundi.

  Drawn on one sheet of calf skin, probably by monks, this map reflects the thinking of the medieval church and thus places Jerusalem at the centre, with the rest of the world spreading out around it. Although it is geographically fanciful it remains an extraordinary work of art and scholarship, containing 500 drawings, including scenes from the Bible as well as classical mythology, and images of various peoples of the world.

  Dominic Harbour, the Cathedral’s commercial director, explains that the Mappa Mundi should be seen as a virtual map, conceptual rather than geographically accurate. Its purpose was to educate and underline the centrality of the church to everything, while today it has immense value as a thirteenth-century vision of the world.

  Interpreting the Mappi Mundi tells how medieval society saw the world.

  akg/North Wind Picture Archives

  Ditherington Flax Mill, the first built to withstand cataclysmic blazes, is the ancestor of today’s sky scrapers.

  Shropshire Archives

  Leaving the cathedral’s great red sandstone tower behind us, we set off towards Shrewsbury, some 50 miles to the north. The line goes through the historic town of Ludlow, with its mighty castle, and threads its way between the hills of Wenlock Edge to the east and the Long Mynd to the west before descending into the Severn valley at Shrewsbury. Here it was industrial rather than medieval history that captivated us. In Bradshaw’s day the rural market town was at the centre of the Industrial Revolution, busy with mills and foundries. Among the most important was Ditherington Flax Mill.

  IN BRADSHAW’S DAY THE RURAL MARKET TOWN WAS AT THE CENTRE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, BUSY WITH MILLS AND FOUNDRIES

  John Yates, Inspector of Historic Buildings for Shropshire, explained how this apparently ordinary building was at the very cutting edge of Victorian technology. It was the first iron-framed building, and its construction was, in John’s words, ‘an astonishing act of virtuosity, bravado and skill’.

  All mills were mighty constructions, and Ditherington Flax Mill was no exception. It was 200 feet long, 40 feet wide and five storeys high. But, unlike its neighbours, it could withstand outbreaks of fire. Processing flax produced highly combustible dust, and fire was one of the great dangers for the industry. The cost of a blaze was in the order of £10,000, a small fortune in those days. So architect Charles Bage (1751–1822) was hired to design a mill that wouldn’t burn down.

  At the time the first cast-iron tracks were rolling off the production line in nearby Coalbrookdale,
and Bage used the same technique to build cast-iron columns and beams. The clever design meant internal walls weren’t necessary to give it strength. This subsequently allowed the factory owners to create large open-plan floors.

  This system also enabled architects to create taller buildings – later using steel rather than cast-iron frames – in a design movement that eventually lead to today’s skyscrapers. Without Ditherington Flax Mill the cities of the world would look startlingly different places.

  One of the joys of reading Bradshaw’s guide is the quirky information it contains. Take this extract from the entry for the Church of St Mary’s in Shrewsbury. ‘Many years ago a hair-brained fellow undertook to slide down a rope, laid from the top of this spire to the other side of the river. But he was killed in the attempt.’

  Keen to discover more, we tracked down Robert Milton from St Mary’s. At the top of the tower, looking out across the Severn, Robert told the story of Robert Cadman, a steeplejack who would supplement his income by performing high-wire tricks, cashing in on a craze for ‘flying’ that gripped the imagination of Britain in the 1730s.

  Cadman was a master of the art, and it’s said that he once slid down a rope from the cupola of St Paul’s Cathedral in London blowing a trumpet. As his fame grew, hundreds of people would turn out to watch his performances, and his wife would collect money from awe-struck audiences. At St Mary’s he walked up an 800-foot rope anchored in Gaye Meadow and ending at the top of the spire, performing stunts as he went. His finale was to slide down the rope from the spire to the ground, swinging by a wooden breastplate. But on 2 February 1739 the rope snapped where it was attached to the church and he fell to his death. At the church there’s a plaque in his memory which reads:

  Let this small Monument record the name Of Cadman, and to future time proclaim How by’n attempt to fly from this high spire Across the Sabrine he did acquire His fatal end. ’Twas not for want of skill Or courage to perform the task he fell, No, no, a faulty Cord being drawn too tight Harried his Soul on high to take her flight Which bid the Body here beneath good Night Feb.ry 2nd 1739 aged 28

  After Shrewsbury we headed south-east to the village of Coalbrookdale, famous for its role in the development of the iron industry and now the site of a popular working museum of the Industrial Revolution. Bradshaw writes: ‘Several important processes in the manufacture ... of iron have originated here ... in 1779 the first iron bridge was made. This still stands in substantial repair, at a point where it crosses the Severn with a single arch.’

  Until the eighteenth century, charcoal was used to smelt iron, a process which required an enormous amount of wood to produce a tiny amount of iron. Then Abraham Darby I (1678–1717) developed a new technique, using coke hewn from the surrounding coalfields instead of charcoal. It meant that cast iron could now be made cheaply and in huge quantities. Iron manufacturing swiftly graduated from cooking pots to the first iron wheels and rails, the first iron cylinders for steam engines and, in 1802, the world’s first steam locomotive, built by Richard Trevithick.

  Eventually other products such as steel superseded this invention. Nonetheless cast iron has a striking monument to its success. Near Coalbrookdale, where its component parts were made, the first iron bridge still stands proud today, in the village that grew up around it and to which it gave it’s name. Built by Abraham Darby III (1750–91), grandson of the smelting genius, it is not only a masterpiece of engineering, but also an elegant addition to the natural landscape of the gorge it crosses. The bridge carried traffic until 1931, but is now reserved for pedestrians, who can gaze down at the historic stretch of river where the first iron boat was launched in 1787.

  So innovative was the first iron bridge, it lent its name to the town in Shropshire where it was built and became a symbol of the industrial revolution.

  © Alan Novelli/ Alamy

  The technology of cast iron technology spread quickly. Among its early advocates was Telford, who was one of the most prolific civil engineers of the Industrial Revolution, building roads, canals and bridges all over the country. Thanks to Telford the aqueduct at Chirk, north-west of Shrewsbury, where the Ellesmere Canal crosses from Shropshire into Wales, became the first to be lined with cast iron.

  Chirk Aqueduct, opened in 1801, is mirrored by a viaduct built some 50 years later.

  © Mike Hayward/Alamy

  For Chirk – already a stopping point on his mail road – Telford and his partner William Jessop designed 10 graceful arches that would carry the canal some 70 feet above the Ceiriog Valley, thus allaying concerns about industrial defacement of a delightful valley. He wavered about the use of cast iron and compromised by using it for the floor of the aqueduct. (Later a cast-iron trough was inserted to solve the problem of water leaks.)

  Finished in 1801 at a cost of just over £20,000, it was a vital link between coalfields and granite quarries and the newly developing centres of manufacturing. In 1846 a viaduct was built next to it to accommodate the newly arrived railway. Together the constructions complement the majesty of the secluded valley, home of the kingfisher.

  Cheshire pastures were once enriched by bone dust to produce velvety grasslands.

  Photolibrary

  As the train continues through peaceful, rolling countryside it’s easy to forget that this border was once a battleground between the English and Welsh. The castles along the way are the only reminders. Chirk Castle, just beyond the aqueduct, is described by Bradshaw as a ‘noble looking edifice, which has been preserved from ruin and may be regarded as a perfect model of time-honoured castles of the ancient Lords of the soil’. He went on to call it a must for any visitor to the area, and in order to enable the Victorian traveller to make arrangements in advance for a visit he revealed it to be the seat of R. Middleton Biddolf Esq.

  R. Middleton Biddolf Esq was no fan of the railways and did not relish the idea of the line coming across his land. But when he realised it was inevitable, he decided to make the best of it and negotiated for Chirk to have its own station.

  Tourists flocked to visit the fourteenth-century castle with its tower and dungeon. Subject to numerous alterations since its inception, it remains the only castle built during the reign of Edward I that’s been permanently occupied. Today it’s the home of Guy Middleton and open for the public to enjoy most of the year.

  Our next stop was Wrexham, nine miles to the north, and on our way there we travelled over more viaducts crossing the Welsh valleys. It’s extraordinary to see how well they’ve survived the decades of pounding by the trains.

  From Wrexham, we were heading towards the Cheshire pastures, another Victorian success story. According to Bradshaw, ‘The famous Cheshire pastures were at one time almost worn out when they were renovated with bone dust and made five times as valuable as before.’

  In the nineteenth century chemists began to identify the key ingredients of good fertiliser, and Cheshire became the centre of a huge experiment to use bone dust, or bone meal, to improve the grass. So successful was it that, over the next 100 years, the area became the centre of the dairy trade. Milk could be moved by train to nearby cities, along with associated products like cheese.

  A rare farmer who still makes Cheshire cheese in the traditional way is John Bourne. John’s family had been making cheese since the 1700s, but the arrival of the railways opened up new markets. By 1845 the farm was producing 12,000 tonnes of cheese every summer. At the end of the century it was making almost 30,000 tonnes. These days, John produces cheese using hands-on rather than industrial methods, in much the same way his grandfather would have done. John’s cheese spends up to six months stored in his cellar. As John says, the flavour is all in the maturing.

  AS THE TRAIN CONTINUES THROUGH PEACEFUL, ROLLING COUNTRYSIDE IT’S EASY TO FORGET THAT THIS BORDER WAS ONCE A BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND WELSH

  Now, to the west of Chester, as we join the original mail line to Holyhead, there’s an excellent view of the Dee, the banks of which were once a hi
ve of industry.

  WALKING AROUND LLANDUDNO, YOU CAN’T HELP BUT NOTICE HOW WELL KEPT IT REMAINS

  The railway bridge over the Dee was constructed by Robert Stephenson as part of the Chester to Holyhead railway and opened in September 1846. But a flaw in the design marred an otherwise glowing reputation. It was built using cast-iron girders strengthened by wrought-iron bars, and eight months after its opening it became the first railway bridge to collapse, killing five people as carriages from a local train fell into the river. As a result, bridge builders abandoned brittle cast iron in favour of more flexible wrought iron.

  On its way towards the coast of North Wales the line hugs the south bank of the Dee estuary, which in Bradshaw’s day was an area of heavy industry. The guide refers to ‘extensive collieries, the coals from which are shipped to Liverpool, Ireland and various parts of Wales’. There’s no sign of the collieries as you pass through today, but not far from the line there is another landmark mentioned by Bradshaw, Flint Castle, which he describes as ‘but a mere shell, there being left only the grey ruined walls’. It’s another in the chain built by Edward I to keep the marauding Welsh at bay.

  For all its beauty, however, it was not the castle that drew us to Flint. Instead, we were heading to Rhydmwyn, to what was a top-secret chemical weapons factory in the 1940s. According to historian Colin Barber, Churchill had instructed the chemicals firm ICI to set up a factory in 1939, and Flint’s remoteness, good rail links and proximity to ICI’s chemical works at Runcorn made it the perfect location.