Industrial archaeology from the Ribble

An item by an R. Kitchen from the May 1976 issue of the Lancashire Archaeological Bulletin published by the former county archivist Ben Edwards and his wife Margaret.

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Recovery of an Early Tramway Waggon at Preston

In the summer of 1975, an amateur diver made exploratory dives in the River Ribble at Preston. About fifty yards west of the Old Tram Bridge on the north side of the river, he went to a depth of 20-25 feet in the Stone Delph (excavated as a quarry for stone used in the rebuilding of the Parish Church of St. John, Preston). There, almost completely buried in rock, gravel and mud, was what he assumed to be the wheel of a gun carriage. He reported this find to Mr. James Naylor, leader of “Divers ‘74”, a Preston based sub-aqua club. Mr. Naylor organised a more professional search conducted by himself and a team of club members,

Despite visibility being restricted to a distance of one to two feet, by turgid water, disturbed mud, etcetera, underwater cameras managed to produce photographs of part of an iron wheel.

Mr. Naylor brought the photographs and his own findings to the attention of Mr. Stephen Sartin, Assistant Keeper of Fine Art, at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Mr. Sartin, basing his opinion on the remarkable similarity of the wheel in the photograph to fragments of flangeless cast iron waggon wheels found in earlier researches on the Preston and Walton Summit Railway, decided that the pictures were of part of a tramway waggon f this railway which connected the North and South Sections of the Lancaster Canal. Corroborating evidence came from the fact that on 3rd October, 1825, an accident occurred on the Avenham incline of the railway (see account in Preston Pilot, 7th October, 1826), In this accident, the endless chain of the winding engine, hauling a waggon train up the incline, broke, causing waggons and horses to be thrown into the river at a point just upstream from the site of the find.

The divers, encouraged by this evidence of the importance of their discovery, commenced the removal of stones and mud and chiselled away encrusted gravel. Conditions at a depth of twenty-five feet, in tidal waters, were such that work was restricted to an average time of half an hour per week, when tide and weather permitted. The partial re-filling of the Stone Delph in 1858 helped to preserve the waggon from erosion and corrosion by the flowing water, but rendered the divers’ task more difficult. By March of this year, all that was possible to facilitate lifting had been completed. Chris Miller Crane Hire Limited, an experienced Company with excellent facilities, were engaged to carry out the lift.

On 14th March, divers and crane men succeeded in bringing out of the Ribble four cast iron flangeless wheels, each on its own part of the axles; a wrought iron drawbar; some fragments of the woodwork, and parts of axle trees and “U” bolts – all parts of the waggon of the 1826 accident, Interesting among the iron was the greater part of a grappling iron, which would appear to have been used in an attempt to raise the wagcon after its crash into the river.

The actual lifting was televised on the “Look North” programme on Monday, 15th March, 1976, and aroused much popular interest. That this is one of the most important local finds of the early industrial revolution era, is confirmed by Mr. Gordon Biddle, who examined the parts so far recovered. Mr. Biddle, who has done considerable research on canals in general and the Lancaster-Preston Canal in particular, says that only fourteen flangeless-wheeled tramway waggons are known to exist, and certainly none is of this particular design. So far as he can ascertain, neither are there any measured drawings of the waggons used on this line.

Underwater investigations continue and more parts are being retrieved, and it is hoped in due course to produce measured drawings of the waggon.

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In a later issue, Stephen Sartin, who created a model of the wagon, added the following:

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Readers of L.A.B. will remember an account of how, after a link in the steam-operated incline chain snapped, the coal-laden wagon ran down a 1:6 gradient at the old Tram Bridge, Avenham Park, Preston, and into a deep. and notoriously dangerous part of. the River Ribble.

There it remained until recently, when fragments of it were recovered. It is from these that the present model has been constructed by the writer. Since neither photographs nor measured drawings exist, (the only illustration known is a distant and diagrammatic view of a horse train in a painting owned by the Harris Art Gallery and Museum) it is the first time that it has been possible to show what the wagons really looked like.

Work on recovering more items, including remains of the body of the wagon, will start with the onset of warmer weather.

The diameters of the flangeless wheels astonishingly vary from one foot eleven and half inches to two feet and one and three-quarters inches, and all four could not have been in contact with the rails at the same time. This rough and ready arrangement may well have been the cause of the wagon’s leaving the track.

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Preston Digital Archive image: ‘Tram Bridge, Preston 1864. Photograph by Robert Pateson. The bridge was disused by this date, having closed about a year earlier in 1863.’