Silkstone Waggonway

Starting Point - Silkstone Common Station. Finishing Point - Dodworth Station. Distance - 6 Miles.

1855 Map Current Map

The Silkstone Waggonway was built on an earlier 1802 built waggonway between Barnby Furnace Colliery and the 1790s built Barnsley Canal. Barnby Furnace Colliery closed in 1807 but the canal company purchaced the trackbed from the colliery's owners, the Low Moor Ironworks. From 1807 to 1870 the Silkstone Waggonway connected mines in the area to the Barnby Basin at the end of the canal where Lane Ends Road is today.

Wikipedia article about the Silkstone Waggonway

For this walk I largely followed the Silkstone Waggonway and Woodlands walk on All Trails, except that where this walk cuts across the golf course at waypoint 6 to get to Dodworth station I took a longer way around, sticking with the Silkstone Waggonway to its end where it once met a branch of the Barnsley Canal and then picking up another couple of old railways on the way to Dodworth station.

Starting at Silkstone Common Station we head along Moor End Lane to Nab Wood. Along the way we pass houses once occupied by local mine workers including the 1877 built row of houses known as the South Yorkshire Buildings. 

Below - The road passes under the former Silkstone Common - Wath branch of the Woodhead Line, once one of the country's earliest long distance electrified railways it was closed as its 1500V DC system became non standard against the more widely adopted 25KV AC system. The route is now a footpath and cycle route.

On the right just past the bridge is the entrance to Nab Wood and shortly into the woods is the Huskar Memorial. This is dedicated to the memory of 26 children killed in a mining accident in July 1838 at the nearby Huskar Mine. A heavy thunderstorm had put the mine's steam engine out of action, the miners were advised to wait for rescue at the bottom of the shaft, however a group of childred decided to make their own way out via a Day Hole (drift entrance). The House Carr Dyke burst its banks following the heavy rain, flooding the mine workings. It was news of this accident that prompted Queen Victoria to order a public enquiry in to the use of child labour in mines (a report that today provides a great deal of information on mining operations of the time), the end result was the Mines and Collieries act of 1842 which prohibited females and boys under 10 from working below ground.

Wikipedia article about the Huskar Pit disaster

Below - The Huskar Memorial

The All Trails walking route takes us on a little circuit of Nab Wood which is worth seeing for the remains of the mining activity at the site.

Below - The former Day Hole entrance can still be seen nearby.

Returning to Silkstone Common station and crossing the foot crossing at the end of the platform brings us to Cone Lane, here an 1830 extension of the waggonway that took coal from pits in the area to the Barnsley Canal was in a tunnel and a plaque marks the site. Modern housing occupies the area now, though it will soon be possible to pick up the waggonway.

A footpath takes us from Cone Lane to Blackergreen Lane, following this road for a short way a path goes off to the right just after the curve in the road. All Trails says to take the path north east to Barnsley Road in Silkstone, however the path heading south east at this point takes us to the foot of the incline plain on the waggonway. It is possible to follow the incline for a short distance and the embankment at the foot of the incline is still evident.

Below - Looking up the inclined plain towards Huskar Pit

Below - Following the incline until it disappears in to farmland and looking down the incline.

From the foot of the incline this path to Barnsley Road follows the course of the waggonway and we soon come across the first sight of stone sleepers still in situ, a notable feature of many parts of this walk.

At the corner of Barnsley Road and High Street there are a couple of monuments to the waggonway that once crossed here, a replica wagon on a length of track and a stone marker.

The waggonway followed Silkstone Beck for much of its length and the Waggonway Trail that follows the route today leaves High Street on the right, running round the back of the houses. It might appear to be a simple back passage for the houses at this point save for the giveaway of stone sleepers in the ground.

For large parts of the route these stone sleepers can be seen, this is quite remarkable as generally people would reuse the stones after waggonways with this type of sleeper had been lifted.

The waggonway passes Pot House and some interesting old buildings of Pot House Corn Mill that are now in various retail and leisure uses.

A little further north is another memorial to the old waggonway, this time featuring a plaque and what looks to have been a siding diverging to the left, complete with a couple of lengths of rail. This is around the site of Old Coal Pits on the 1855 map mentioned earlier.

North of here we have passed the highlights of the route, probably why the All Trails suggested route heads off to Dodworth Station at this point. I figured I might as well walk the line to its end and had spotted a couple of other bits of old railway to walk on the way back to Dodworth though.

Below - Though past the most popular bit of the waggonway trail a few more stone sleepers appear on the northern stretch.

The final section from Royd Lane to Lane Head Road just appears to be like any piece of tarmaced country lane.

At Lane Head Road we reach the destination of the waggonway where the coal was loaded in to canal boats. The canal branch has long been filled in and sadly there is nothing to see of it. I gather part of the canal basin is now a sunken garden for one of houses here, though that is of course private property. A row of cottages that would have been here when the canal basin was in use survive.

Turning right along Lane Head Road we reach what was effectively the replacement of the waggonway and canal method of transporting coal, a branch line that connected the nearby mines to the railway line through Barnsley, the Silkstone Coal Branch. 

Above - Remains of a bridge over the Silkstone Coal Branch.

The Silkstone Coal Branch opened in 1850. The maps show a connection to the waggonway near Old Engine, a connection that would have allowed coal to be forwarded by rail rather than barge. The use of the Silkstone Waggonway peaked in 1851 as traffic left the canal in favor of the improved rail connections. Over time some of the smaller pits closed and coal working appears to have become concentrated on Stanhope Colliery at Furnace Bridge which became the terminus of the Silkstone Coal Branch when the waggonway closed in 1870. Stanhope Colliery was not far from the old Barnby Furnace Colliery so presumably the later pit was sunk deeper to explore deeper seams than those worked out by the earlier mine. The site of this mine was close to Royd Lane today. Though rather overgrown the trackbed is walkable to there. Due to the vegetation I've not included photos.

A connection once existed between the Silkstone Coal Branch and the Higham Bottom Railway, though the field that now occupies the site of this link seems to have ploughed over the trackbed.

Having reached Royd Lane turning left brings us to where the road would have crossed the Higham Bottom Railway, a footpath follows the trackbed for the rest of the line's length to Pog Well Lane.

The Higham Bottom Railway linked Silkstone New Colliery at Higham Bottom (where we meet Pog Well Lane) with the Barnsley Canal at it's own basin just north of that served by the Silkstone Waggonway, and as mentioned this too had a connection to the Silkstone Coal Branch. Though the section between Lane Head Road and the canal had dissapeared by 1894 the rest of the line was still in use at that time, By the time of the 1907 Map it was truncated to a siding off the Silkstone Coal Branch labled as Higham Sidings. That too had gone by the 1933 Map.

Much of the walkable section of the Higham Bottom Railway was a rope worked incline, this is evident today as the route is a bit steep for a conventional railway. Where the trackbed curves sharply to the left was once the engine house that wound the incline.

Below - View looking down the include on the Higham Bottom Railway

Pog Well Lane becomes Elmhurst Lane and we follow this to Dodworth and on to Dodworth Station.

Below - Next to Dodworth Station is the disused signal box. In the forground the buffer stop was once at the headshunt of lines in to Old Silkstone Colliery which was on the left here. Modern industrial units are now built on the site of this mine.