Railway200 around Tyneside; Tanfield300 & Bedlington400+ too?

With the Railway200 countdown clock ticking, and just over 100 days to go until 2025, the year being lauded as the 200th anniversary year from the birth of the ‘modern railway’ in 1825 with the opening of the Stockton and Darlington (S&D), maybe we also should celebrate the more than 200 years of ‘railway’ before 1825 in the North East too?

In the old counties of Northumberland and Durham, over 200 years of ‘railway’ development happened by the time of the Stockton and Darlington being opened, on 27th September 1825, and, in my view, should be celebrated alongside Railway200 to contextualise that the S&D was a landmark on the route to the railway of today.

The following is a very, very brief overview of rail history in the area, which is very complex and sometimes confusing and contradictory too!

It is important to state that what many would define as a ‘railway’ of being guided land transport is actually ancient, dating back potentially thousands of years to Ancient Greece, but a logical start for the technology in the North East is actually in Bedlington, when Beaumont introduced it from Nottinghamshire.

Bedlington400+ (pre- 1625)

Bedlington and the valley of the river Blyth has a rail history stretching back to the early 1600’s with the introduction of waggonways (traditional North East spelling) to the area by Huntingdon Beaumont (c. 1560 – 1624) who brought the technology from his home in the East Midlands to the North East. The boring rods (allowing searching for coal seams without sinking a shaft) and waggonways didn’t prove successful for Beaumont himself (he died in prison due to debts), but was implemented successfully by others and is remembered by the ‘Beaumont Seam’ to commemorate his efforts.

Beaumont died 201 years before the opening of the Stockton and Darlington, so railway history in the North East is actually over 400 years in the making, with the S&D more or less marking a halfway point.

The Beaumont Waggonways could perhaps be considered as the starting gun for the gradual development of waggonways, with these spreading around the North East to great effect. Many were short-lived industrial affairs that moved regularly due to changes in the coal industry (mines opening and closing), as well as the practice of landowners trying to price-gouge (to use modern parlance), so a waggonway would be relocated onto neighbouring land to reduce transport costs.

This all changed in 1725, with the Tanfield Waggonway…

Tanfield300

The Tanfield Railway is celebrating it’s 300th anniversary in 2025, having opened in 1725. This video on Facebook by the Tanfield Railway sets out again the history surrounding Bedlington and Beaumont, and the development of waggonways through 1621 (Whickham Waggonway), one of, if not the most extensively coal mined areas in the world at the time. This allowed coal to be shipped from the river Tyne all year round, and importantly allowed development of pits much further from rivers than previously. 

This made some families incredibly wealthy, and led directly to the ‘Grand Alliance’ who built the Tanfield Waggonway, 8 miles in length and invested heavily in the infrastructure to make it as level and efficient as possible, with one legacy of this being the Causey Arch, and the still in use (as part of the Tanfield Railway) Causey Embankment.

This was 100 years BEFORE the Stockton and Darlington opened, and built upon a little over 100 years of development from Beaumont at Bedlington.

As many others before have stated, the railway didn’t really start in 1825 with the S&D. It is still undisputedly a massive landmark in railway development, and rightly should be celebrated, but should, in my opinion be contextualised with the 200+ years of development preceding it.

Bedlington Rails made the Stockton and Darlington work

In 1820, five years before the S&D opens, a man called John Birkinshaw developed a new type of  malleable iron rail at Bedlington, which went on to be used extensively on the Stockton and Darlington (about 2/3rds of the line was laid with Bedlington rails according to Friends of the Stockton and Darlington Railway), despite George Stephenson himself having an intense interest in a cast iron rail manufacturer at the time.

This, apparently wasn’t out of the ordinary for George, who would adopt ‘other people’s good ideas’ when he saw the advantage of using them over his own designs/techniques. The adoption of these rails was perhaps pivotal in the success of the S&D overall.

Let’s hope that the Railway200 celebrations could be part of a long-awaited and welcome wider recognition of the long waggonway and railway history of the area.

I also hope that Bedlington might develop something of a ‘Railway Quarter’, which I mooted around a year ago; as it played a such pivotal role, as outlined above in starting the Waggonways of the North East, which then led to the Stockton and Darlington, and the development of ‘Bedlington rail’ by John Birkinshaw was again vital to the S&D at opening and in operation, as well as on other routes soon to celebrate their 200th anniversaries (Liverpool and Manchester for example). 

Bedlington Ironworks and the associated business of R.B. Longridge also have a strong history with locomotives, many of which were the first to run in nations they were exported to, with 200th anniversaries for those soon to approach in coming years, yet on the ground in Bedlington, there are very scant hints at this important piece of history that could certainly be part of the Northumberland tourism offer.

There is also of course significant sites of interest such as Dial Cottage in Killingworth and Stephenson’s Cottage at Wylam (owned by the National Trust). That could also feature much more strongly in the local area during 2025, and hopefully long into the future too.