Moor Lane cut-through


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On the subject of early pits and railways and canals and paths, a big map might help. This is the 1830s.

bilbraborn, that address you gave doesn't work, but this one does, Found that photo, many thanks, http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;NTGM004737&pos=1

My best friend lived 1 ranmore close

It was Andy Ballard. The house number I think was 88.

We both went to Bramcote Hills Secondary Modern School and had also known each other at Beeston Fields Junior School.

Andy's dad used to run us to football (CWS Colts).

I think Andy lives somewhere near Stoke now.

I was delivering newspapers there around '69 and yes, it was for Coopers Newsagents (Seven Oaks Crescent).

There were just starting Moor Farm Inn at the time and I saw them add to it with the Gun Deck.

Then the whole lot got closed down some years later as it had been infiltrated with drug dealers and unruly types from Stabo.

(I left Bramcote in '73).

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Hi hippo girl.

When I lived in Bramcote there was Bramcote Tech and Bramcote Grammar school which eventually got combined into one.

Closer to the park there was Bramcote Secondary Modern which I went to.

Combined with Bramcote Primary, it meant that school times were very busy indeed. I remember buses being parked all the way along Moor Lane to take pupils home at 4 p.m.

The cut-through still remains a curiosity. The consensus seems to be that it was a wagonway for transporting stuff from the canal wharf. I'd love to get some idea of when it was done etc.

Nice to hear from people who lived in the area. Looking back, it was a good place to live.

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Hi Barclaycon, moor lane continued to be full of buses when my children all went up to school there !!!!!!!....as for the cutting, I often wondered if there was a track that led from moor lane up bridle road, which is near where I live now.....one of the old cottages, now sadly demolished had no windows roadside, so whether there is a connection ?????

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I used to live in Ranmore Close, which stands above the cutting. I've heard of Moor Lane having been an old coal waggonway several times over the years but have never found out any details. Looking at Ordnance Survey plans seems to indicate that the route of any such waggonway ran from Robbinetts Arm - off the main canal at Cossal - across the fields to Balloon Woods and then up to the cutting before going across the fields to Chilwell and Attenborough. The course of any such waggonway may have been diverted, extended, or amended to suit the requirements of people over the centuries, so what was originally built may have been adapted to suit any subsequent developments. The old route may even have passed over the hill before money or manpower enabled them to create the cutting. I examined many of the carvings on the walls of the cutting and the oldest date I found was 1896; any older carvings may have disappeared, if there were any.

The geology to the north of the cutting is Coal Measure Clay but geological faulting led to the sandstone uplands of Bramcote Hills; the fault can be seen as a lage groove in either wall of the northern end of the cutting.

I have heard of the Huntingdon Beaumont railway in the vicinity of Balloon Woods, but I'm not sure that it's the one that ran through the cutting.

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All good info David. Thanks for that.

I'm sure the cut-through was done way before the1890's. I'm guessing sometime in the 18th. century.

Obviously some serious research in Nottinghamshire's libraries is needed. I just wondered if some historian had already done the work and published it many years ago. You never know, someone on this forum might have a book somewhere - History of Bramcote or some such work.

I used to deliver papers in Ranmore Close in the 60's and a lot of my school mates lived in Bramcote.

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Here is another map of Bramcote Moor dated early 1880's.

It shows Moor Lane from the cutting north upto the railway bridge. This straight part of Moor Lane is not the original route, it used to skew over to the west following the contour of the drier land - probably why the cottage half way along has the unusual orientation.

This part of Moor lane also stopped at the Deddington turn (opp Moor Farm) before the cutting was 'cut'. South of the Deddington turn was a footpath that aligned with what is now Church Street. After the cutting was completed a 'new' southern part of Moor Lane was made aligned with Bridle Road.

The map is very detailed but does not show a wharf at Bramcote Moor Bridge.

Interestingly, it shows that the alignment changed to build the railway bridge (plot 10). There is also an access from the railway to Coventry Lane (plot 14), I assume this access was for when the railway was built suggesting that Moor Lane was not a link to the railway.

BramcoteMoor1880.jpg

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Great map.

I'm not sure that I concur with your theory that the cutting hadn't been 'cut' at this stage.

It still looks as though it's there on the map past Moor Farm.

I firmly believe that it was cut way before the 1880's and way before the railway arrived.

A recent essay on Bramcote described it as 'an Elizabethan tramway carrying coal from Bramcote Moor, up Bridle path to Beeston. Legend has it that for every ton of coal,a ton of stone for Wollaton was earned'

A few links:

http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/history/wagonway.htm

http://www.island-publishing.co.uk/WRC_mirror/wollaton2.htm

Thanks for the continuing interest.

Maybe we'll get to the bottom of it one day.

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Hi Barleycon,

I have not said the cutting was not cut at the time of the 1880’s map.

What I was saying is that before the cutting was cut the part of Moor Lane south of the cutting was differently aligned as a footpath only to what is now Church Street. Over the last 2 centuries the line of what we today know as Moor Lane has changed considerably. Clearly, on the 1880’s map the cutting is there.

I think the cutting is from the first quarter of the 19th Century, 1800 - 1825. This also is the period when in the location there were French POW's from the Napoleonic war that were put to task in Stapleford and it is plausable that the same POW's were used to dig the cutting.

The Wollaton Wagon way laid by Huntingdon Beaumont followed the route of what is now the Old Coach Road, Wollaton. Nothing to do with Bramcote at all.

My family lived on the Moor from the early 1800’s and photos of the area do not support a theory that there was a tracked wagon way. Certainly, Moor Lane was used for horse and carts, but this does not make a wagon way in my book.

The legal status of Moor Lane was researched in the 1970’s when Wimpey were to build the Bramcote Moor development. The ownership of the Moor Lane hedgerow had to be established. Moor Lane is classed as ‘Highway’ or in other words, ‘the public have the right to pass and repass’ on it but is not otherwise defined as a foot path, bridle path or road. If it had been a private wagon way I am sure the land deeds would show as such.

The topography of the area would make a tracked wagon way implausible as the gradients would prevent anything other than single horse/cart from making the steep climbs. Similarly, Bridle Road is very steep.

The gap in between Moor Farm and the White house (now demolished) is too narrow for a waggonway as there would be no room to share the route with the public going about their business.

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All good info David. Thanks for that.

I'm sure the cut-through was done way before the1890's. I'm guessing sometime in the 18th. century.

Obviously some serious research in Nottinghamshire's libraries is needed. I just wondered if some historian had already done the work and published it many years ago. You never know, someone on this forum might have a book somewhere - History of Bramcote or some such work.

I used to deliver papers in Ranmore Close in the 60's and a lot of my school mates lived in Bramcote.

I too used to deliver papers in Ranmore Close. Sunday papers mostly. Lived on Moor Lane from 1957. Primary school and Grammar School. Remember the buses but never had to use them. Some friends used to leave their bikes in our garage.

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On Monday night I went to a meeting of the Bramcote History Group at St. Michael's Church Hall.

Graham Crisp and Alan Dance gave a very interesting presentation about the history of Bramcote Moor.

Very well attended - must have been about 120 people there.

Ostensibly I went to see if they'd discovered anything more about the Moor Lane cut through.

The two gents deserve enormous praise for the amount of research that they have done.

They have gone way further than anything the internet can do. Involving church records, council documents, land registry plans etc.

Basically, they've come to the conclusion that the cut-through has been there for hundreds of years. That's why it's so difficult to find out who built it and why.

Graham Crisp has found a map from 1771 which shows it clearly marked, but they both reckon that it was cut way before this.

Alan Dance has a theory (which I find entirely plausible) that the cutting was probably ordered by the landowners -

Sempringham Priory who owned the estate from the 12th. Century. He bases this on the fact that an enormous amount of stone must have been removed. So the landowners probably planned it in order to extract lots of sandstone for building work whilst at the same time providing easier access to the moor. Apparently Bramcote Moor was not only valuable grazing land, the coal deposts there came right up to the surface.

Another interesting discovery they made is that there was a railway station at Bramcote. Un-timetabled, just for the private use of Catherine Sherwin Gregory it probably existed between 1875 and 1894.

Fascinating stuff.

I believe a book about these things will be coming out in October.

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Another interesting discovery they made is that there was a railway station at Bramcote. Un-timetabled, just for the private use of Catherine Sherwin Gregory it probably existed between 1875 and 1894.

A lot of interesting stuff there, but I'm intrigued by the "Bramcote railway station". Did the speakers say exactly where it was? There isn't - and to my knowledge never has been - a railway line close to Bramcote. The nearest is the still-existant Midland line from Nottingham to Derby, and that doesn't get particularly close to Bramcote itself.

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