Notes and news — October 1993
Crossness Open Day
- Crossness Open Day
- Waterwheel at Kew
- Waterloo & City Line reopens
- The Wharncliffe viaduct and Hanwell railway station
- VVIA in London
- Hopping down in Belgium
- The old pneumatic parcels tube
- GLIAS walks
- 148news.pdf
Once more Crossness Open Day was a huge success in spite of local competition, not the least, Bexley Festival. Visitor numbers were slightly down on last year but the interest. if anything has increased. The 'visitor survey forms show the engines have an international appeal with people travelling from abroad to see them and the work carried out by the Trust.
Changes since last year's Open Day include the name of the engine being restored - it was found to be 'Prince Consort' not 'Victoria'. Other changes are the removal of the high pressure and low pressure cylinder-heads and pistons, the intermediate pressure cylinder-head, and thirty per cent of the 'P.C's steam and exhaust pipes. A second screen in the octagon has been cleaned and repainted to an undercoat, and several tons of sand have been excavated from a culvert and around the pump area. Beneath the octagon, 'P.C's condenser, water and air pumps have been cleared of years of detritus and work has started on their stripping and renovation.
GLIAS was well represented with a display and bookstall, plus many members supporting the Crossness Engines Trust. We hope to see YOU there next year. 'Tosher'
The Kew Bridge Steam Museum has the popular image of a steam engine collection but it also has the important purpose to serve as a museum of water supply. Before the advent of the steam pumping engine water wheels were widely used to provide motive power for water pumps and it is therefore appropriate that a water-pumping water wheel should be installed there. A recent acquisition from Maiden Bradley in Somerset is just such a device and was officially inaugurated by His Grace the Duke of Somerset at a ceremony held on 27 July 1993.
The new waterwheel is 20 feet in diameter and has 72 buckets. It is of the backshot type and drives through gearing a set of three throw ram pumps, which for demonstration purposes pump water round a recycling system. A decorative fountain for the amusement of the public may be installed later. The wheel was built by E S Hindley and Sons in 1902 at Bourton, Dorset. Originally it provided a water supply for the Duke of Somerset's estate and the village of Maiden Bradley. Bob Carr
The new trains are (with a few initial teething troubles) now in service between Waterloo and Bank (GLIAS Newsletter August 1993).
At Bank a newly opened pedestrian tunnel gives a convenient more direct connection from British Rail to the Docklands Light Railway. The new pedestrian tunnel makes use of the old railway tunnel made in the late 1890s where the tunnelling shield was run on past the intended site for Bank station.
The original Greathead tunnelling shield is still in situ and thoughtfully in the recent conversion the front few inches have been left bare and painted red, forming a feature of interest to passengers walking through the old shield and continuing on along a newly made tunnel to the Docklands Light Railway. Bob Carr
The Wharncliffe viaduct and Hanwell railway station
Hanwell railway station in Greater London on I K Brunel's Great Western main line from Paddington to Bristol is a strong reminder of what suburban railway stations used to be before many of them were reduced to a bus shelter on an exposed platform. At Hanwell there are still substantial station buildings complete with overhanging canopies. The whole is a charming survival and well worth a nostalgic visit and in the vicinity are 22 listed areas/buildings. In 1980 British Rail spent a considerable sum of money restoring Hanwell Station in a sympathetic manner and the station has listed status.
However with the introduction of Crossrail it is intended to electrify the railway through Hanwell on the overhead system and British Rail would now like the station to be de-listed so that the canopies can be cut back to make room for the overhead electric wires. Moreover just to the West is the famous Wharncliffe Viaduct which carries the main line over the valley of the River Brent. Overhead electrification here is likely to alter appearances considerably.
Wharncliffe Viaduct was the first contract of the GWR to be let, in November 1835. It was the only really big engineering work on the first section of the railway, between Paddington and Taplow, which opened on 4 June 1838. Brunel's substantial viaduct over the Brent of eight yellow-brick arches is an impressive early railway structure using the Egyptian style for the piers to great effect. There is a well-known lithograph by J C Bourne. What we now have is not exactly as I K Brunel left things as the viaduct was rebuilt to accommodate four tracks when the main line was quadrupled in 1877.
Durham viaduct on the East Coast Main Line to Scotland was electrified in a manner which was not too disfiguring and although more expensive than the standard system perhaps with Wharncliffe a similar approach might be adopted. On the Liverpool Street suburban electric system it proved possible to retain station canopies and Walthamstow Central station might be quoted as an example of what can be done. It is to be hoped that this whole issue can be simply resolved. Bob Carr
Anyone interested in the fate of Wharncliffe Viaduct and Hanwell Station is asked to contact Mr Gordon Pedley of the Hanwell Preservation Group. Tel: 020 8567 0470Over the weekend 21-23 May this year two van loads of industrial archaeologists from the Belgian industrial archaeology society Vlaamse Vereniging voor Industriële Archeologie v.z.w. visited London and were shown round by GLIAS members. Staying at a small hotel in Finsbury Park visits were made to the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, Kirkaldy Testing Museum, The London Canal Museum Battlebridge Basin and Crossness beam engines and there were informal stops at various places to see more things. On Saturday afternoon there was a visit around Dockland calling in at the North Woolwich Old Station Museum with in the evening an Indian restaurant meal in Brick Lane. Many thanks to all who helped. Bob Carr
A number of GLIAS members made their way, some by Hovercraft, to Poperinge in Flanders for the triennial Hoppestoet on Sunday 19th September. A calm sea, light breezes and sunshine made for an excellent day out even without the demonstrations of 'handpluck' of hops in an artificial 'hop veldt' in the town square.
The procession illustrated the history and spread of hops but, although it included Pepin the Short, it made no reference to the English counties of Hereford or Kent. The Hop Queen of the Hallertal from Germany joined the local "royalty" and formed part of a procession of some 1,200 people in spectacular costumes. DANNY HAYTON
The old pneumatic parcels tube
The recent GLIAS IA Walk No. ⑫ Smithfield: Markets and medicine mentions, at location 3, the presence underfoot of the former pneumatic railway tube which ran from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Euston; this note outlines its somewhat chequered history.
The pneumatic tube was constructed under powers given to the promoters, the Pneumatic Despatch Co., by Acts of 1859 and 1864. It ran west from the GPO building in St. Martin's-le-Grand down Newgate Street, Holborn, High Holborn, and St. Giles High Street before turning north up Tottenham Court Road to Drummond Street near Euston Station. The intention was to carry parcels traffic away from the congested roads. The single-bore tube was of horseshoe cross-section with a flat base, giving a tube 4ft 6in. wide max. by 4ft 1in high. It was constructed of cast iron sections either 9ft long for straight sections or 6ft for curves and about 1in thick. Where tight curves were necessary, the tube was constructed in brickwork with a cement rendering. The cars ran on rails of 3ft 8½in gauge, their cross-section closely conforming to the tube dimensions with the residual gap sealed by a rubber flange. Motive power was provided at the intermediate station at 245 Holborn by a steam engine driving an exhauster fan similar to those for ventilating mines; both engine and fan being supplied by James Watt Ltd. The trucks were propelled by suction towards Holborn or by pressure away from it.
The system was based on an earlier and smaller cross-section tube which ran 600 yds from Euston Station to the GPO North Western District Office. The 1¾ mile section of the new tube between Euston and the station in Holborn was formally opened in November 1865. However, it was not until 1869 that the remaining 1,658 yard long section was completed. In promoting the tube, the Company hoped the Post Office would use it but the PO proved to be unwilling to commit itself to its use. The inevitable result was that the tube was not a commercial success, only operating fitfully until complete closure in 1874, the tube being left as a derelict underground void. The Pneumatic Despatch Co itself was dissolved by the Board of Trade in 1882.
A proposal was made in 1895 to convert the tube into a third-rail electric railway but again this project came to nothing as the PO was again being very cautious. Yet another use was mooted in 1899-1900, the idea being to carry small diameter pneumatic tubes - again nothing happened.
In 1910, probably as a result of a sewer gas explosion in Bermondsey the previous year, the Corporation of the City of London and the Borough Councils of Holborn and St. Pancras constructed ventilators at points along the route to prevent a build-up of flammable gas.
The next and, at long last, productive stage in its history was initiated when Holborn Borough Council suggested to the Post Office that the tube be used as a telephone cable route to minimise the need to open up trenches in busy streets. The PO then acquired the whole length of the tube by agreement for £7,500 (the original tube cost about £200,000). This agreement was confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1922 and the tube became part of the PO underground cable network. By this time, it had suffered from the attentions of other underground operations but much was still usable. The PO constructed manholes where necessary along the tube and connections were made for duct entries from the conventional cable duct system. The net result of these various modifications was that the tube was neither air-tight nor ventilated. Gas did get into the tube and, as the result of an incident in 1926 when workmen were overcome by gas, the PO made provision for portable electric blowers to be connected for gas clearance when needed, utilising the tunnel's electricity supply.
At 7.45 am on the morning of 20 December 1928, PO workmen opened up a manhole in High Holborn - gas was smelt so one man went into the tube to connect the blower, but before he could plug it in there was an explosion. He started to scramble out but there was a further explosion and he was blown out of the manhole, dying a few days later in hospital - remarkably he was the only fatality, but eight people were injured and five suffered the effects of gas. The results of the explosion were spectacular.
'a section, three eighths of a mile long, of one of London's main thoroughfares was, within a few minutes, converted from a solidly built and level roadway into a chaotic ruin of tilted flagstones, upturned blocks of concrete, cavities and fissures, leaning lamp-posts and zigzag kerbs. Heavy manhole covers were shot high into the air and during the explosions the whole roadway rose and fell with a wave-like motion. A taxi-cab was overturned, windows were broken and underground cellars blown in. Flames broke out at many points and the terrified onlookers might have been pardoned for refusing, on this occasion, to believe their senses.' (Ref.2)
Water and hydraulic mains were fractured and cellars flooded. Gas mains broke, the fires burning for several hours, the worst being in Denmark Street in a building containing some 3 tons of highly flammable celluloid cine film material. The incident aroused sufficient concern for the Home Secretary to appoint a Commission of Inquiry, their report (ref.3) was published in 1929. It was concluded that coal gas was the most likely cause although the source was never positively identified. The tube had been wrecked between Kingsway and Tottenham Court Road and that section was replaced with a conventional duct network, the remainder of the tube continuing in use for cables. Lee (Ref. 1) found over 3,400 yds in use in the 1970s. An important consequence of the explosions was to stimulate the Post Office to undertake pioneering research into means of detecting explosive mixtures of gas the miner's lamp was of little use for determining if it was safe to enter a manhole as the flame could not be seen from the surface there was little point in having to go down a manhole shaft into a possibly explosive atmosphere to look at the state of the flame! DON CLOW
References:
1. Lee, C.E. 'The Pneumatic Despatch Company's Railways". Trans. Newcomen Soc. Vol. 45 1972-3. The definitive reference, but further details are given in :
2. Moller, O.P. "The Holborn Gas Explosion' PO Electr. Engrs. J. Vol. 22. Pt1/ Apr. 1929. pp47-51.
3. 'Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Holborn Explosions and Fires" Cmd. 3306. HMSO. 1929. Both this reference and ref.2 include vivid photographs of the explosion damage.
4. X C T 'London's Oldest Tube' PO Electr. Engrs. J. Vol.16. Pt 4. Jan.1924. pp401-405.
(NB. Although details of the tube in contemporary accounts do not always agree in minor respects, the recent account in Trench & Hillman's 'London under London' is noteworthy only for the number of serious errors.)Under the auspices of Industrial Heritage Year GLIAS ran five guided walks in Central London this summer.
Bill Firth led a walk round Victoria looking at transport and public utilities which was a purely GLIAS affair. It was after this that we realised that a breakdown in internal communications within the London Tourist Board had led to a lack of publicity following their initial press release. Bill, who has been looking after publicity, took the matter in hand and produced steadily increasing numbers of GLIAS members and the general public for the subsequent walks.
Dave Perrett took us 'South of the Border', down Bermondsey way, starting with a group which included a couple of Americans who had seen the notice in 'Time Out' and thought it was different. The route included Kirkaldy's, Borough Market and the Leather Exchange but the group was rendered speechless when we were shown the site of Christies, then the world's largest hat makers, in a courtyard off Bermondsey Street.
Sue Hayton looked at 'Markets and Medicine', on a day when we just avoided the rain, in Smithfield. The walk covered the ages from pre-fire streets around St Bartholomew the Great (where Benjamin Franklin was an apprentice printer) to the site of the world's first electricity generating station under the arches of Holborn Viaduct. Charles Norrie took a large party, some attracted by an item in the 'Big Issue' describing the walk as an alternative to the usual tacky tourist trails, fron St Pancras through the goods yard areas behind and back to Kings Cross.
The final walk produced the largest party of all (just) for Tim Smith's tour of Whitechapel from Tower Hill to Aldgate East by way of Wilton's Music Hall, the Co-Op Wholesale buildings and a few examples of hydraulic power. Buildings ranging from the 17th century to the 1930s and from wool warehouses to the Gunmakers' Company Proof House provided a facinating tour of the City's Eastern Fringe. Walks in the Victoria, Smithfield and King's Cross areas have already been published and the final editing and illustrating of Bermondsey and Whitechapel means the should not be far behind. The reponse to this year's walks was so encouraging that the committee is thinking about running another series, perhaps further out.
Any members with suggestions please get in touch. DANNY HAYTON
© GLIAS, 1993