Monument Type(s):

• MINERAL RAILWAY (Mid 19th century - 1873 AD to 1873 AD)

Summary

A 19th century mineral railway.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA6203 - 2005 DBA and field survey of the area around the Pontcysyllte and Chirk aqueducts by Govannon Consultancy

Description

Narrow guage horse drawn line serving quarries in the valley west of Chirk, which opened in 1873. The engineer was Henry Dennis who later worked on the Snailbeach District Railway. It climbed up the side of the valley to join the GWR Shrewsbury-Chester line at Trehowell. There was also an extension east of the main line which joined the Llangollen canal. The line was rebuilt in 1888 as a steam powered line and rerouted to a terminus at Chirk, at which point the extension to the canal was abandoned <5>

Photographed during aerial survey in 2010. <6>

The Glyn Valley Tramway was the sole example in Wales of a roadside steam tramway such as flourished briefly in Ireland and in continental Europe, but was also one of the last railways built in Britain specifically to connect with a canal. Its pre-locomotive and locomotive-era routes are distinguished from each other on the map. In its first incarnation, in 1873 it connected the Glyn quarry with the Shropshire Union Canal in a manner that in some respects came straight out of the 1820s canal company sponsorship, horse and gravity working, a formation shared with a turnpike, and a passenger service based around the local inns, complete with horn-blowing driver. It originally ran between the Glyn quarry and Gledrid wharf on the canal. Between 1888 and 1891 it turned itself into a steam-worked roadside tramway, a period of its existence which has tended to overshadow its original conception but it provides an interesting link between two entirely different phases of railway history. This period saw new sections of line at top and bottom – a route that left the old alignment at Pontfaen to climb along the edge of the Chirk Castle demesne to a joint station with the GWR and a mineralonly extension to Pandy and Hendre beyond Glynceiriog. <7>

<01> Ordnance Survey, 1895, OS County Series 05SW, 1895 (Map). SSA9563.

<02> Ordnance Survey, 1902, OS County Series 05SW, 1902 (Map). SSA9559.

<03> Ordnance Survey, 1954, OS SJ23NE, 1954 (Map). SSA9557.

<04> Ordnance Survey, 1980, OS SJ23NE, 1980 (Map). SSA9558.

<05> Morriss Richard K, 1991, Railways of Shropshire, p41-42 (Monograph). SSA20232.

<06> Shropshire Council, 2010-Jan-7, SA1001_087 to SA1001_088 (2 photos) Flight: 10_SA_01 (Oblique aerial photograph). SSA26207.

<07> Gwyn D, 2007, Industrial archaeological audit of the area around the Pontcysyllte aquduct proposed Word Heritage Site, pp.20-21 (Historic landscape survey report). SSA23073.

Sources

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