Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Railway Tunnel
You may remember last weekends tale of Rufford Hall and the amazing wager. Well, not to be outdone I went on another weekend adventure with my Dad but this time we went in search of Nottingham's lost suburban railway.
Woodthorpe Grange sits just on the outskirts of Nottingham city centre. It was once the home of Lord Ashwell - by all accounts a nice enough chap who owned a bleaching works and bought Woodthorpe Grange as a family seat for himself and future generations of Ashwells.
Peace reigned for a number of years until the march of the steam engine lead to the building of the suburban railway which was designed to run straight through his land both overground and through two tunnels. Although this displeased Ashwell greatly he had no choice but to give in to the scheme and recieve some compensation. The line ran from 1889 till the late thirties and was last used in the early fifties. The legacy of the route has left a number of clues hidden amongst the surburbia it once cut through and my Dad has always pointed these things out to me over the years since I was very small (I'm 30 and he is 62) as he is a big fan of all things Train, Tram, Trolleybus and bus. Although the surburban railway was only 4 miles long it was a fantastic feat of engineering as it comprised three tunnels, a series of viaducts, bridges, cuttings and three intermediate stations.
We went on sunday under the cover of a picnic and leaving my mum and girlfriend to walk the dog we stole away in search of the railway tunnel which cut through what is now a very handsome 18 hole pitch and putt course in the grounds of Woodthorpe Grange.
My dad had brought with him an old map of Nottingham printed on vellum and we traced the line through the woods (easy because there were trees which were 200 odd years old and there was a run of much younger trees cutting through the middle of the wood) up to a part which was fenced off. Undeterred we scrabbled through undergrowth until we came to what the map indicated as being the end of the tunnel. It looked like a steep bank with dense bracken and weeds amongst a heavy clay soil. We scaled the bank (no mean feat given the loose stones on the soil surface) until we got about three quarters of the way up. My dad noticed a line of sandstone peeking out a little from the soil and he pulled away some of the foliage to reveal a crack underneath. The Tunnel!
We drew the line at excavating the whole thing but we peered into the inky black tunnel and felt a huge sense of satisfaction at finding it. We also found a small piece of the original bridge mouldings which would have been fixed into the edges of the tunnel mouth - it was black with soot and still smelt strongly of a time long passed. So we had our proof to take back to civilisation.
I sat on our backyard last night enjoying a glass of wine and could'nt help but feel completely content. My Dad has always been my hero but Sunday was the day he went one step further by proving himself to be a local Indiana Jones.
Just call me Indy Jnr.
Woodthorpe Grange sits just on the outskirts of Nottingham city centre. It was once the home of Lord Ashwell - by all accounts a nice enough chap who owned a bleaching works and bought Woodthorpe Grange as a family seat for himself and future generations of Ashwells.
Peace reigned for a number of years until the march of the steam engine lead to the building of the suburban railway which was designed to run straight through his land both overground and through two tunnels. Although this displeased Ashwell greatly he had no choice but to give in to the scheme and recieve some compensation. The line ran from 1889 till the late thirties and was last used in the early fifties. The legacy of the route has left a number of clues hidden amongst the surburbia it once cut through and my Dad has always pointed these things out to me over the years since I was very small (I'm 30 and he is 62) as he is a big fan of all things Train, Tram, Trolleybus and bus. Although the surburban railway was only 4 miles long it was a fantastic feat of engineering as it comprised three tunnels, a series of viaducts, bridges, cuttings and three intermediate stations.
We went on sunday under the cover of a picnic and leaving my mum and girlfriend to walk the dog we stole away in search of the railway tunnel which cut through what is now a very handsome 18 hole pitch and putt course in the grounds of Woodthorpe Grange.
My dad had brought with him an old map of Nottingham printed on vellum and we traced the line through the woods (easy because there were trees which were 200 odd years old and there was a run of much younger trees cutting through the middle of the wood) up to a part which was fenced off. Undeterred we scrabbled through undergrowth until we came to what the map indicated as being the end of the tunnel. It looked like a steep bank with dense bracken and weeds amongst a heavy clay soil. We scaled the bank (no mean feat given the loose stones on the soil surface) until we got about three quarters of the way up. My dad noticed a line of sandstone peeking out a little from the soil and he pulled away some of the foliage to reveal a crack underneath. The Tunnel!
We drew the line at excavating the whole thing but we peered into the inky black tunnel and felt a huge sense of satisfaction at finding it. We also found a small piece of the original bridge mouldings which would have been fixed into the edges of the tunnel mouth - it was black with soot and still smelt strongly of a time long passed. So we had our proof to take back to civilisation.
I sat on our backyard last night enjoying a glass of wine and could'nt help but feel completely content. My Dad has always been my hero but Sunday was the day he went one step further by proving himself to be a local Indiana Jones.
Just call me Indy Jnr.
posted by Anonymous at
Monday, July 04, 2005
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