ARTISTIC RECREATIONS BUILDING AND LANDSCAPE SURVEY CONSULTANCY AND HERITAGE LOTTERY FUNDING DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH HERITAGE AND GUIDES MUSEUMS AND INTERPRETATION PLANNING
DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH
Almost all the work carried out be John van Laun Associates requires ‘paper’ research. Some is of a primary nature (documents in repositories - record offices) and some secondary (in the main published source). However, many of the latter may come from rare books or even recent photographs taken before buildings were demolished. The following illustrate the wide range of sources available to John van Laun, how they have been used and where.
For Archaeological Investigations Ltd (Hereford Tramroad Embankment – Scheduled Ancient Monument)
The Kington Railway (tramroad) at Kington Gasworks (source: unknown);
Much can be gleaned from the above. The motley collection of wheels suggests that this was late in the life of the tramroad. Although most of the line had closed a short section between Kington and Dolyhir Quarries was maintained to bring in limestone. As seen here it was for the gasworks as lime was needed here. Note the empty gasholder: the pulleys would have had weights to counterbalance the cast-iron circular holder which moved up and down in a water-filled base as it was inflated and deflated with gas. This was made in the retort house to the left of the chimney.
For Blaenau Gwent Borough Council (Publication ‘Industrial Archaeology in Blaenau Gwent’)
A basic gasworks of 1812 with a square gasholder with the retort house to the right
For Royal Worcester Porcelain Works, Worcester
The Blowing Engine House from the southeast (source: RCA&HMS C/44847) but is since demolished.
This horizontal engine supplemented the beam engine which ground the raw materials used in the production of porcelain in the ‘Bone Mill’. The beam engine lay in the impressive three-storey building shown in the photograph on the bottom left. The new engine lay under the slate roof but both engines were removed in the 1920s. It was similar to an extant one at Burgess and Leigh dating from 1888 shown below. The disused ‘Bone Mill’ is now Listed Grade II*.
For Groundwork, with CADW
The Merthyr Tramroad is best known as the line on which Richard Trevithick’s locomotive ran in 1804. This was the first occasion that a steam locomotive ran on rails. By 1841 Brunel’s standard gauge Taff.Vale Railway should, theoretically, have replaced it. But there are sources (1851 Public Health plan and 1875 25in to one mile Ordnance Survey map) which show that the tramroad continued in use long after but having changed to a standard gauge mineral line.
But there is an anomaly brought to light by a photograph (John Minnis collection) showing the 4ft 2in (or by then spread to 4ft 4in) tramroad still in use at Quakers Yard. From here, northwards as far as Pontygwaith, archaeology shows no evidence of the line being anything other than a tramroad laid in the Outram/Overton manner (single holes in stone-sleeper blocks with the plates fixed directly to them).
This begs the question how two gauges and two types of track (4ft 8˝ edge rail and 4ft 4in tramroad) can be compatible. This can be explained by chairs recovered at the north end of the line.
By using flat-bottomed rails laid on their sides it can be seen that the profile fits a half rail. In this way the outer part (the head of the rail when in normal use) would give a gauge of 4ft 8˝ whilst the channel lying on the inner side would provide a track for a 4ft 4in tramroad.
For Royal Commission on Ancient & Historic Monuments (Wales) (Report on Railroads and Tramroads on the Blorenge (Blaenavon) - The first surface tramroad
Ten neatly stacked combined tie-bars and chairs (sills) were recovered from outside a drift mine near Brynmawr. In 1794 a similar number with the same weights were cast at Ebbw Vale for the nearby embryonic Nantyglo Ironworks before any furnaces there were in blast. It seems reasonable to equate these ten survivals with those cast in 1794. The gauge was only 18in.
In 1796 the idea seems to have migrated a few miles to Blaenavon (in 1794 in partnership with Nantyglo). Here, running out to a quarry on the side of the Blorenge Mountain it is known that a line was laid to an alternative source of limestone for the Blaenavon Ironworks. The gauge here has increased to around 24in. This narrow gauge suggest that it was the underground tramroad that had reached the surface and that this was based on that used in 1794 with horns into which the track dropped.
Both the 1794 and 1796 systems had narrow gauges, the latter being only 24in and evolved from the underground type. This gauge corresponds fairly closely to that suggested by Curr who used a narrow gauge in 1787.
The origins of tramroads is debatable but it seems reasonable to accept that it was John Curr who used them in 1787.