Monument Type(s):

• RAILWAY (Opened, Mid 19th century - 1848 AD to 1848 AD)

Summary

The Shrewsbury, Oswestry & Chester Railway was authorised by Parliament in 1845. In 1846 the SOCR and the North Wales Mineral Railway merged to become the Shrewsbury & Chester Railway.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA6742 - 2010 DBA and walkover assessment along proposed Vyrnwy pipeline (Oswestry to Penley) by Oxford Archaeology North

Description

The Shrewsbury, Oswestry & Chester Railway (SOCR) was authorised by Parliament in 1845. It had been supported by the North Wales Mineral Railway (NWM), whose traffic around Wrexham and Chester appeared to be under threat from a rival London & Birmingham Railway scheme to link Shrewsbury and Chester, and who had offered the SOCR the use of their line north of Ruabon. In 1846 the SOCR and NWM merged to become the Shrewsbury & Chester Railway (SCR). ->

-> There were significant engineering problems to overcome on the SCR, and two major viaducts were constructed, across the Dee and the Ceiriog (the latter lies just on the Shropshire border [see PRN 13172]). Nearer Shrewsbury was a marshy area called the Black Bog, which created stability problems. The engineer on the scheme was Henry Robertson, and the contractor was Thomas Brassey, who was the pre-eminent railway contractor of his day and also worked on the Shrewsbury to Wellington line. ->

-> North of Ruabon, the old NWM line was ready for SCR traffic by late 1846, and the line opened between Chester and Ruabon, with a stagecoach service on to Shrewsbury. The line opened to Shrewsbury in October 1848, the first line to reach Shrewsbury (Shrewsbury railway station was still unfinished at this point). The company had already come to an agreement with the Shrewsbury & Birmingham Railway (SBR) regarding the sharing of track and rolling stock, the promotion of their combined alternative Midlands-Mersey through route, and the undercutting of their arch-rival, the much bigger LNWR. Unsurprisingly, the LNWR retaliated, and since it controlled the company with which the SCR shared Chester station (the Birkenhead, Lancashire & Cheshire Junction Railway), it was able to impede the operation of the SCR quite successfully. The LNWR also successfully attracted both passenger and freight traffic off the SCR by lowering its own prices, and by mid 1850 the company was in financial trouble. Together with its ally, the SBR, it entered into an agreement with another major railway company trying to expand northwards, the Great Western Railway (GWR). This incensed the LNWR, but it failed to stop the agreement being ratified. Four years later, both the SCR and the SBR amalgamated with the Great Western. Whilst the rivalry of the two main companies continued, they gradually settled into a working relationship. <1>

A desk based assessment of the Vyrnwy Pipeline, carried out in 2010, identified that the proposed route crossed the line of the railway. A watching brief over the route as it crossed this area was recommended. <2>

The Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, via Ruabon, Wrexham and Gobowen incorporated the North Wales Mineral Railway and had several branches to mines along the route. Opened between 1846-8.
Further source identified by NRHE: Rex Christiansen, 1973 The West Midlands pp.87-9, 240 (Volume 7) [not further referenced]. <3>

Sources

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.