The following cautionary tale graphically illustrates the twin dangers of over-hasty research and of accepting the printed word as gospel.
Up and down the country there used to be many scenes such as those depicted in the accompanying photographs. "Little Supers" (as they are sometimes known) carrying out monotonous daily tasks in quarry, gravel pit and brick works. The wagons they hauled were often as varied as they themselves - side tippers, end tippers, or solidly built contractors' types with inside bearings and "twisty spokes". They churned their time away on rough and temporary tracks, the sleepers squelching into the ooze as they passed over, and often, for a boyish prank, the track would throw engine and train for a "pitch in". Such little engines never required much effort to re-rail, they worked day after day with little or no maintenance, sometimes roughly handled and often overloaded. They probably stood in open spaces in lieu of a shed, took water from a dirty stream, and if care was taken of them it was merely in the form of a slate over the chimney top at the weekend. They earned their owners handsome dividends, were re-boilered once or twice, occasionally had new tyres, and probably stood at 20/- in the "Books".
The eagle-eyed will have noticed by now that the locomotive is our old friend Bagnall 970 of 1888, the 0-4-2WingT "Excelsior". Now in all the standard histories she is reputed to have ended her days in the Quarries at Portland, Dorset. However, I fear that this conclusion is based on slipshod investigation and erroneous deduction. Certainly, after her stint with Janes Nuttall & Sons on the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway construction, she gravitated to Mr. F.J. Barnes' Portland Stone Quarries, but exhaustive local enquiries over many years plus diligent checking of all the relevant 21" scale Ordnance Survey Maps failed to turn up any confirmatory evidence of the existence of Mr. Barnes' quarries.
Now it is not generally known that until Companies House became computerised and moved to Wales, they used to keep a register of Director's Directorships which was readily accessible to the public, though its existence was not exactly over-publicised. These records are now kept in a disused deep level tube railway tunnel at Haverstock Hill, running parallel to the Northern Line's Belsize Park Station. After much prodding, etc. earlier this year, permission to inspect the records was at last granted. After three dusty weekends 500 ft. below London, the missing evidence at last came to light.
It appears that company and stock manipulation is no new thing. Mr. F.J. Barnes was not only a Director of the Amalgamated Portland Cement Ltd. - an early conglomerate - but also, amongst others, of the Stiperstones Mining Co. Ltd. Later the name of Stiperstones Mining was changed to Marches Portland Stone Quarries Ltd. after it had been used as a vehicle to covertly acquire majority shareholdings in a large number of dormant and defunct mines and quarries throughout the U.K. This was all part of a complicated assets manipulation scheme intended to persuade potential investors that the assets base of Amalgamated Portland Cement was more substantive than was in actual fact the case. If you think the Stipperstones' company name is illogical, just ask yourself how near to Tal-y-llyn lake the Tal-y-llyn Railway ever came!
Up and down the country there used to be many scenes such as those depicted in the accompanying photographs. "Little Supers" (as they are sometimes known) carrying out monotonous daily tasks in quarry, gravel pit and brick works. The wagons they hauled were often as varied as they themselves - side tippers, end tippers, or solidly built contractors' types with inside bearings and "twisty spokes". They churned their time away on rough and temporary tracks, the sleepers squelching into the ooze as they passed over, and often, for a boyish prank, the track would throw engine and train for a "pitch in". Such little engines never required much effort to re-rail, they worked day after day with little or no maintenance, sometimes roughly handled and often overloaded. They probably stood in open spaces in lieu of a shed, took water from a dirty stream, and if care was taken of them it was merely in the form of a slate over the chimney top at the weekend. They earned their owners handsome dividends, were re-boilered once or twice, occasionally had new tyres, and probably stood at 20/- in the "Books".
The eagle-eyed will have noticed by now that the locomotive is our old friend Bagnall 970 of 1888, the 0-4-2WingT "Excelsior". Now in all the standard histories she is reputed to have ended her days in the Quarries at Portland, Dorset. However, I fear that this conclusion is based on slipshod investigation and erroneous deduction. Certainly, after her stint with Janes Nuttall & Sons on the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway construction, she gravitated to Mr. F.J. Barnes' Portland Stone Quarries, but exhaustive local enquiries over many years plus diligent checking of all the relevant 21" scale Ordnance Survey Maps failed to turn up any confirmatory evidence of the existence of Mr. Barnes' quarries.
Now it is not generally known that until Companies House became computerised and moved to Wales, they used to keep a register of Director's Directorships which was readily accessible to the public, though its existence was not exactly over-publicised. These records are now kept in a disused deep level tube railway tunnel at Haverstock Hill, running parallel to the Northern Line's Belsize Park Station. After much prodding, etc. earlier this year, permission to inspect the records was at last granted. After three dusty weekends 500 ft. below London, the missing evidence at last came to light.
It appears that company and stock manipulation is no new thing. Mr. F.J. Barnes was not only a Director of the Amalgamated Portland Cement Ltd. - an early conglomerate - but also, amongst others, of the Stiperstones Mining Co. Ltd. Later the name of Stiperstones Mining was changed to Marches Portland Stone Quarries Ltd. after it had been used as a vehicle to covertly acquire majority shareholdings in a large number of dormant and defunct mines and quarries throughout the U.K. This was all part of a complicated assets manipulation scheme intended to persuade potential investors that the assets base of Amalgamated Portland Cement was more substantive than was in actual fact the case. If you think the Stipperstones' company name is illogical, just ask yourself how near to Tal-y-llyn lake the Tal-y-llyn Railway ever came!
And now it all falls into place. Readers of Eric Tonks' excellent Industrial Railway Society booklet 'The Snailbeach District Railways' will have come across the Stiperstones Mining Co. as being one of the more reluctant contributors to the cost of building the Snailbeach line. After all, its main lead and barytes production mine was some miles from the 'head of steel' at Crowsnest. An extension of the Snailbeach line was projected, but never built, beyond Crowsnest, past the main works at a delightfully named location called The Bog, to peter out at Gatten Lodge. Despairing of the S.D.R. ever serving their mine, a small internal 2 ft. gauge line was laid at The Bog in 1898, following the lead of the nearby Callow Hill quarries, who also had their own internal 2 ft. gauge line, both despite the Snailbeach line being of 2'4" gauge! Details of all these lines are shown on a map on page 14 of Eric Tonk's book.
"Excelsior" arrived in the time honoured fashion - being dragged by a traction engine over temporary rails laid on the public roads from Minsterley Station (G.W.R./L.N.W.R. Joint). She then settled down for the next 53 years to a remarkably obscure existence, in an isolated part of a rapidly depopulating area. A few enthusiasts ventured as far as Crowsnest in the 'thirties, 'fourties and 'fifties, but the taciturn Driver/Fitter Gatward of the S.D.R. - then the lines sole permanent employee - gave them no hint of the existence of the little line over the hill at The Bog. When the Marches Portland Stone Company went into liquidation in 1921, the creditors seem to have either forgotten about the erstwhile Stiperstones Mining Co. or decided that it would cost more to get the scrap out than the metal was worth. A delightful old itinerant poacher-cum‑reformed gentleman of the road called Will Link worked the tailings at The Bog with assistance of nearby cottagers until he died in 1950, steaming "Excelsior" every month or so to remove the accumulated rubbish. It was on one of these all too rare steaming days that Adrian Buckmaster came across "Excelsior" in 1949 whilst hopelessly lost on a cycling holiday in the Rea valley. Being of tender years (14) at the time, he did not appreciate the rarity of what he had come across, but his wonderfully atmospheric photos show to perfection the dying embers of a lost world. Not bad for a Brownie 127!
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"Excelsior" was cut up shortly afterwards; improved roads had enabled the scrappers to get in at last, and Will Link and his shotgun were no longer there to keep them at bay. He had no right to be there, but then neither did they:
But why the secrecy about the true fate of "Excelsior" till now. Eric Tonks undoubtedly knew about "Excelsior" at The Bog, but he kept quiet about her when he wrote the first edition of his Snailbeach book, out of a deep respect for an old man who craved nothing more than to be left in peace in his declining years. Remember how the existence of "Redstone" (the 0-4-OVBT 'De Winton'-style loco) was kept secret for years out of deference to the wishes of the late Stephen Derbyshire. By the time the second edition came out Will was long dead, but Eric Tonks kept his secret for reasons best known to himself. Perhaps he considered that his earlier sentiment now made him seem foolish in a world of such changed values. |
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Will Link, as you will have surmised, is a relative of the illustrious Roy Link. It was only when faced with the Companies House evidence plus Adrian's photographs (sent to me by his son as a result of seeing the article in 'Mercury' No. 12) that Roy admitted the part his erstwhile "black sheep" relative had played in this tale. Perhaps, like me, you had wondered how he managed to produce such a good drawing from ostensibly so little information - now you know. However, the photos do show one or two points where Roy's memory has let him down when producing the "Excelsior" drawing. The pictures show that the smokebox door is of the lift-up type with two hinges. Large sandpots (cast) were fitted on the front plus a ROSCOE type lubricator to supplement the cup lubricators fitted by Bagnall. I'm hoping Roy will now produce a fuller history of the Stiperstones Mining Co. and the Crowsnest Tramway for a future issue of the 'Mercury'. For further information on the life and times of Will Link, I refer you to an illustrated biographical article in the December 2nd., 1933 issue of 'Country Life', page 598.
And the moral of this tale; never accept as gospel all you read, but carry out your own researches to validate information published about obscure narrow gauge railways.
And the moral of this tale; never accept as gospel all you read, but carry out your own researches to validate information published about obscure narrow gauge railways.
