RIP Albert William Tarr

Albert William Tarr was born in East Anstey in 1880.  At the time of his death in 1935, he was living in East Anstey with his widowed mother Harriet.  He had been deaf and unable to speak since birth.  He became a tailor's assistant.  

On January 8th 1935 Albert Tarr was at Dulverton Railway Station in Brushford, waiting for a train to East Anstey.  Mrs Ivy Ellen Thomas of Coombe Head Cottage, Dulverton, was also at the station with her 4 year old son Robert John Thomas.  She and her son were crossing the railway line using the trolley crossing, rather than the footbridge at the other end of the station.  Mrs Thomas was laden with parcels, as she had just returned from a shopping trip to Tiverton.  Robert was dawdling behind her.  

The porter on the platform heard the whistle of an incoming train from Barnstaple and shouted at Mrs Thomas to hurry up. She turned to grab Robert, but then hesitated for a moment.  Albert Tarr realised that Mrs Thomas and Robert were about to be hit by the train, so he tried to save them. The train driver braked, but hit and killed all three of them instantly. 

Mr Leslie Sloman, who had returned from Tiverton on the same train as Mrs Thomas, also tried to grab Mrs Thomas, but he was able to jump back just in time and so wasn't hit by the train.

An inquest into the accident, was held in Dulverton on 10th January.  The verdict was Death by Misadventure.  The coroner was Mr G.P. Clarke. Both the train driver and the railway company were exonerated from blame.  However, the coroner recommended that the footbridge be moved nearer to the station entrance.

Copy of the memorial plaque in East Anstey Church

Waterrow Viaduct

The 4-span Waterrow Viaduct was built by the engineer Richard Hassard for the Devon and Somerset Railway (D&SR) 1871-3.  It carried the railway over the River Tone to the south of Waterrow.

The 43 mile long Devon and Somerset Railway connected Barnstaple to the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) at Norton Fitzwarren near Taunton.  The line opened in June 1871 from Norton Fitzwarren to Wiveliscombe.  The Wiveliscombe to Barnstaple section opened in November 1873.   The line had 14 stations, 4 tunnels and another viaduct at Castle Hill near Filleigh.   It was built as broad gauge and operated by the B&ER.

The D&SR was converted to standard gauge in May 1881.  The Great Western Railway (GWR) acquired the D&SR in 1901.  The GWR was nationalised and became part of British Railways in 1948.  Goods services on the Barnstaple to Norton Fitzwarren line were withdrawn in 1964 and the line closed to passenger trains in October 1966, as part of the Beeching cuts.

The Waterrow Viaduct is also known as the Venn Cross Viaduct or the Tone Viaduct.   It had three tapered stone piers and stone abutments at either end.  These supported a continuous wrought iron lattice girder, which had a bridge deck above and a maintenance deck below.  The viaduct was 148 metres long and 31 metres above the valley floor.  The lattice girder was removed in the 1970s, but the 3 piers and the 2 abutments remain.  The central and eastern pier and the eastern abutment can be viewed from a public footpath through the Hurstone Local Nature Reserve.

The Castle Hill Viaduct over the River Bray was similar in design to the Waterrow Viaduct, but it had 6 spans.   Its pillars are still in use today, as they carry the North Devon Link Road (A361), which opened in 1988.

Eastern and central piers

Eastern pier

Eastern abutment in summer

Eastern abutment in winter

Eastern and central piers in winter

Eastern and central piers on a sunnier day

Central pier

Mounting Blocks

Mounting blocks are used to assist people in mounting and dismounting from horses or carts.  They were very common in Britain until the late 18th century, when the roads were improved enough to allow carriages to be used on them.  Carriages had their own steps and so the need for mounting blocks decreased.  Mounting blocks were especially useful for women, who were riding side saddle or pillion, as they allowed them to mount and dismount without any loss of modesty.  Use of a mounting block puts less strain on the stirrup leather and reduces the chance of the saddle slipping to one side.  It also reduces the strain on the spines of horses.

Most mounting blocks were made from stone or wood and usually had 2, 3 or 4 steps leading to a platform.  Mounting blocks were often located outside churches, public houses, inns, country houses, farms and along the main streets of market towns.

Outside St Gregory's Church, Weare

Old Church Road, Clevedon

B3227, Norton Fitzwarren

This mounting block came from Morse Farm.  It was rescued from the old cider site by John Rendall, who was a former chairman and parish councillor 1993-2015.

Quaker Meeting House in Long Sutton with mounting block in front

Torre House, Torre near Washford

Gatchells Lane, Bicknoller

Former stables at Dunster Castle

Double-ended mounting block

Church Street, Wedmore

Outside Bishop's Farm, Shurton

Former stables, All Saints' Church, Kingston Seymour

United Reformed Church, Mid Lambrook

Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway

The Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway ran from Ashcombe Road in Weston-super-Mare to Portishead via Worle, Wick St Lawrence, Clevedon and Walton-in-Gordano.  

A single track branch line from the Great Western Railway at Weston Junction to Weston-super-Mare opened in June 1841 and another from the GWR at Yatton to Clevedon opened in July 1847.  A branch line from Bedminster to Portishead opened in 1867.  A loop line from the main GWR line opened in March 1884 to serve Weston-super-Mare.  However there was no direct link between the growing towns of Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon and Portishead.  

A railway line from Portishead to Clevedon was first proposed in 1865.  In 1884 the Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon & Portishead Tramways Company proposed building a standard gauge tramway to link the three towns.   The Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon & Portishead Tramways Act was passed in August 1885, but work on the Weston-super-Mare to Clevedon section didn't begin until 1887, due to financial and legal problems.  

The original plan was to run from Weston-super-Mare town centre on the street along the Boulevard.   However the track along the Boulevard was taken up before the line opened, due to complaints from the local council and the terminus station in Weston-super-Mare was at Ashcombe Road.  

The 5 years allowed by the 1885 act for the completion of the line expired in 1890 and another act had to be passed to allow a time extension.  The line finally opened from Ashcombe Road to Clevedon on 1st December 1897.  In 1899 the tramway was designated a light railway and the name of the company was changed to the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Light Railway Company.

The extension to Portishead was delayed due to financial constraints and finally opened on 7th August 1907.  There were objections to the extension because the line had to run through the streets in Clevedon.

The 14 mile long line was a standard gauge light railway.  It had 19 stations, but most of them were only halts, with no platforms and only a hut for shelter.  

There was no connection with the main railway line at Weston-super-Mare.  It did connect to the Bristol to Portishead branch via a siding at Portishead and it was also connected to the Great Western Railway's Yatton to Clevedon branch at Clevedon for a few years by a very sharp radius link. 

The WC&PR served Conygar, Nightingale and Black Rock Quarries in the Gordano valley and they each had their own sidings. The gasworks at Clevedon and a nail factory in Portishead also had their own sidings off the WC&PR.  In about 1913 a short branch line was constructed to a wharf on the River Yeo at Wick St Lawrence.

Colonel Holman Frederick Stephens managed the WC&PR from 1911 until his death in 1931.  He was based at Tonbridge in Kent and was known as the Light Railway King, because he also ran several other similar railways.  William Henry Austen was the manager from 1931 until 1940.

In 1919 the WC&PR started to manufacture and use concrete sleepers to replace worn out wooden ones. Concrete sleepers were not widely used by other British railway companies until after the Second World War.  In 1921 the company bought its first petrol railcar.

The WC&PR operated on a shoestring and was rarely profitable.  Most of the engines and carriages used on the line were bought second-hand from other railways.  Only two engines were bought new.

The increasing importance of road transport in the 1930s and the decrease in output from Black Rock Quarry made the line even less profitable and it finally closed on 18th May 1940.  The track was taken up between October 1942 and the end of 1943.

Map of the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway

Archway that linked the High Street to the station in Portishead

Former railway offices on Ashcombe Road, Weston-super-Mare

Former trackbed of the railway at Weston-in-Gordano

Colonel Stephens Way, Weston-super-Mare

WC&PR steam engine mural, Salthouse Fields, Clevedon

This mural was painted by local artist Damien Jeffrey.

 

WC&PR steam engine, Station Road, Clevedon

This mural was painted by Damien Jeffrey in 2019.  It was commissioned by Clevedon BID.

Further Reading: 

Maggs, Colin G: The Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Light Railway. The Oakwood Press, 1990

Banwell's Old Fire Station

 In East Street, Banwell there is a building which housed the town’s fire engine from the late 19th century until the 1980s.  The inscription over the main door reads as follows: 

“This building is presented by Miss Fazakerley of Banwell Abbey and Fazakerley House, Lancashire, being the property of Banwell for ever to be used for the housing of the fire-engine belonging to that Parish.  19th Day of December 1887 in the year of the Jubilee of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.”

Miss Emily Fazakerley was a wealthy, generous and eccentric lady.  She was born on Anglesey in 1840 and later lived at Denbigh Castle in North Wales.  She moved to Banwell for health reasons in 1883 but died in 1888 at the age of 48. She was buried in London.

Miss Fazakerley paid for a new horse drawn fire engine and for uniforms for the crew. She also provided instruments and uniforms for a village brass band.  The new fire engine replaced the wooden-wheeled hand-drawn machine, which was made by James Manley of Redcliffe, Bristol in 1810 and stored in the nearby church.  The 1810 fire engine had two reciprocating 4 inch bore and 8 inch stroke pumps.  It could deliver 44 gallons of water per minute to a height of 80 feet.  Four men were needed to man it and many volunteers forming a bucket chain were required to refill the engine’s reservoirs with water.  

The fire engine house also had a rest room and the fire bell, which was used to summon the firemen from their homes and workplaces, is still hanging on the roof.

The building is still used by the Banwell and District Volunteer Fire Unit.

Banwell’s Old Fire Engine House

Inscription above the door and the bell on the roof

Turnpikes and Toll Houses

By the mid 16th century it was recognised that most roads in England were in a very poor state of repair and that many of them were impassable in winter.  An Act of Parliament was passed in 1555, which attempted to address the problem by placing responsibility for road repair in the hands of parishes.  Each parish was required to elect two surveyors.  Their job was to oversee the repair of roads in their parish.  The labour was provided by the residents of the parish, who were required to spend four days a year each repairing the roads.  In 1562 another act was passed, which increased the number of days per resident to six per year, with fines for those did not comply.  However much of the damage to roads was caused by traffic passing through, rather than by local residents.

Local Justices of the Peace were given the powers by Parliament to erect toll gates on part of the Great North Road (now the A1) in 1663.  Twelve more Justice Trusts were set up between 1696 and 1714 on sections of road, which were particularly badly maintained.  Local groups of wealthy people paid for improved roads to be built and then charged people tolls for using them.  

The first turnpike trusts were set up in 1707 and were run by trustees, who were local Justices, gentlemen and landowners.  The trusts were non-profit making, but their funds were not subject to audit and there was no legal requirement to keep any roads in a good state of repair.  They were given powers to set and levy tolls on the users of specified stretches of road, usually about 20 miles in length.

133 turnpike trusts were set up by Acts of Parliament before 1750.  Between 1751 and 1772 another 418 acts were passed and the turnpike network expanded across the whole of England, although only about a fifth of Britain's roads were turnpikes.  The last act was passed in 1836, by which time the railway network was beginning to be developed.  Turnpikes were used by stage coaches from the 1750s, where the road conditions were good enough.

The 1st turnpike trust in Somerset was the Bath Trust in 1707, then Bristol in 1727 and Bridgwater in 1730.  Most of Somerset's turnpike trusts were set up between 1752 and 1759. The network of turnpike roads in Somerset was initially the existing main and secondary roads, which were widened and improved.  A few new roads were built later.

Turnpikes trusts erected gates across their roads at strategic locations to collect tolls from the people who used them.  Early turnpikes had wooden gates but those built in the 19th century often had gates made of wrought iron.  The gates were often at points where it was least likely that horse riders or horse drawn vehicles could avoid paying the toll e.g. bridges and crossroads.  They were usually located outside urban areas to avoid charging local businesses. 

The word turnpike was originally a military term for "a spiked barrier fixed in or across a road or passage, as a defence against sudden attack, especially of men on horseback." (Oxford English Dictionary).  The bars erected on toll roads resembled these barriers and so they were referred to as turnpikes from the late 17th century.

In some cases existing cottages were adapted to house toll collectors (or pikemen as they were sometimes known) and their families.  Sometimes temporary shelters were built for the toll collectors.  Later on most toll houses were purpose built.  Early toll houses were built in the same style as local cottages in the area but by the 19th century a distinctive style evolved.   Many toll houses resembled the lodges built at the entrance to large estates and those built in the 1820s had polygonal fronts, which gave the toll collectors good views up and down the roads.  Toll houses were usually built close to the road and many of them had porches, which jutted out into the road.   On major roads grander toll houses were built e.g. with castellations on them to impress wealthy travellers.  The isolated location of most toll houses meant that they were vulnerable to attack by thieves and highwaymen.  Therefore the windows often had shutters and/or bars on them and the houses also had built-in safes.  Toll houses were often built to a higher standard that most of the local vernacular cottages, in order to attract honest and reliable toll collectors.

In the early 19th century there were two different methods of road construction in general use, which had been developed by Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836).  Telford's method with 9" long stones packed together on end, with smaller stones rammed into the top and a layer of small stones on the top, was very effective, but also expensive.

McAdam's method was cheaper: stone was broken into pieces weighing less than 6 ounces.  This was then spread in layers to a depth of 10". This method re-used material recovered from earlier surfaces.  The surface was not rolled - it was gradually compacted by passing traffic. 

John Loudon McAdam became the General Surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust in December 1815.  He worked for the Bristol Trust with his son, who was also called John Loudon McAdam, until his death in 1836.  In 1826 he also became General Surveyor for the Bath Trust.  He worked for the Bath Trust with his grandson William until 1836.

The turnpike road network reached its greatest extent in the 1830s when there were over 20,000 miles of roads controlled by over 1,000 trusts in England and Wales.  Traffic on the turnpike roads declined from the 1840s as the railway network developed.  

Most turnpike trusts were wound up in the 1870s and the toll houses were sold off.  Some became commercial buildings such as pubs and post offices but most became residential dwellings.  The last turnpike trust to be wound up was one on Anglesey in 1895.  

Responsibility for roads was taken over by Highway Districts from 1862.  Highway Districts were abolished in 1894 and their duties and powers passed to Rural District Councils.  Responsibility for main roads passed to the newly formed County Councils in 1889.

Roads continued to be built and maintained using the Telford and McAdam methods until the early 20th century.  Main roads in Somerset were surface dressed with tar from 1908, but it wasn't until the 1920s that they were constructed using several inches of stone, which had been pre-coated in tar or bitumen.

Toll House, Nether Stowey

Toll House, Snowdon Hill, A30, Chard

Horsington Toll House

Horsington Toll Board

Stanton Drew Toll House

Worthy Toll Road Toll House, Porlock Weir - still in use as a toll house

Toll House, Glaston Road, Street

You can see where the original doorway facing the road has been blocked up at some point.

Toll House, Glaston Road, Street

Toll House at Shipham

Red Post Toll House on the A367 at Peasedown St John

This house on Silver Street in Taunton was probably once a toll house

Exebridge Toll House on A396 at the Devon/Somerset border

Toll Cottage, Tower Hill, A358, Williton

Sidcot Gate Toll House on the A38 at Sidcot

Blue plaque on the Sidcot Gate Toll House

Old Down Toll House

This was built in 1835 and is located on the B3139 (Lynch Hill), opposite the junction with Coalpit Lane.

Hartlake Turnpike plaque at the junction of the A39 with Chasey's Drove, to the north of Glastonbury.  This was part of the Wells Turnpike Trust.

Terminus stone on the Brendon Hills at Elworthy, marking the western boundary of the Taunton Turnpike Trust

The Taunton Turnpike Trust was in operation from 1752 until 1875.

Part of the toll board from Misterton Gate

This is now on display in the Museum of Somerset in Taunton.

East Cranmore Toll House on the A361

Charlton Toll House on the A361 at Shepton Mallet

Toll Cottage, on the corner of Ford Road (B3188) and Taunton Road (B3227) in Wiveliscombe

Toll house, 48 Chilkwell Street, Glastonbury

Modern toll board on the toll house, 48 Chilkwell Street, Glastonbury

Toll house at Horton Cross near Ilminster

Toll house on Station Road, Ilminster

Turnpike House, Westhay

This toll house was on the Wedmore Turnpike Trust's road across the Somerset levels to Rowberrow.  It is on the corner of Main Road  (B3151) and Westhay Moor Drove. The blank wall facing the road is where the original doorway would have been located.

Toll house, Kingbury Epsicopi

This toll house, which is located on Thorney Road, was built in the early 19th century for the Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary Turnpike Trust.

Turnpike Cottage, Crimchard

Further Reading:

The Toll-houses of Somerset by Jane Dowding and Patrick Taylor.  Published by Polystar Press, 2013

Somerset Roads: The Legacy of the Turnpikes, Phase 1 Western Somerset by J.B. Bentley and B.J. Murless.  Published by Somerset Industrial Archaeological Society, 1985