Middlebere Plateway

Near contemporary accounts indicate that the line was built in 1805 and opened in 1806, and it is present on a map of 1811. On 16 August 1806, Fayle wrote to Wedgwood announcing the opening of the line and a reduction in the price of clay. The engineer was John Hodgkinson, who had worked with his cousin Benjamin Outram, a pioneering railway and canal engineer. Papers held in Corfe Castle Town Museum state that the contractor was named Willis. At the time the manager of the clay pits was Joseph Willis and tenant at Norden Farm, so this points to a possible "self build" by Fayle's men to John Hodgkinson's instructions. Initially the railway served clay pits to the east side of the road from Wareham to Corfe Castle, but shortly thereafter it was extended under the road to serve clay workings on the other side of the road. There are two tunnels under the road, serving different workings. The northern tunnel carries a plaque on its east face reading BF 1807. The southern tunnel has a plaque on its west face Dated in 1848, but as the tunnel is shown on earlier tithe maps, that is believed to be a rebuilding date. Workshops and a weighbridge were built near New Line Farm to the east of the road and weathering beds were also located here; these were dumps of newly dug clay which had to weather for up to a year to allow the clay to break down to make it workable. ==Description==

As a plateway, the Middlebere Plateway differed from the edge railway that eventually became the norm, in that the flanges retaining the truck wheels on the line were on the rails (plates) rather than on the wheels. The plates were long, L-shaped and made of cast iron, weighing . They were supported on stone sleepers weighing ; the ends of the plates were held down by nails driven into wooden plugs inserted into holes in the sleepers. The gauge is generally quoted as being about , although some recent archeological investigations suggest it may have been as narrow as . The clay trucks were flange-less. They were hauled by horses and remained so throughout the line's 100-year life. Two horses worked in tandem pulling 5 wagons weighing almost each and with a capacity and making 3 round trips a day, giving an annual total of . By 1865, an additional team of horses and wagons had been brought into use and passing places constructed to raise the annual tonnage to . Horses continued to be used right up until 1946. The plateway was one of the first users of the patent axle that was designed by John Collinge of Bridge Road, Lambeth. This axle was largely used for road vehicles and a few other applications to rail vehicles. It implies that the wheels rotated on fixed axles, and, until its introduction, wheels had to be removed, and axle arms greased at least once a day when travelling any distance. ==Remains==

A few remains of the Middlebere Plateway are still visible. The quay at Middlebere Creek has gradually fallen into disrepair and almost vanished. Some of the stone sleepers remain in place today, complete with holes where the rails used to be fixed, whilst others have been reused as paving stones at various locations. Others can be found in the walls at Middlebere farm. In many places the route across Hartland moor can be traced. The tunnel under the Wareham to Corfe road is now used by a stream draining the former clay working and is a listed building, although the north portal was buried when the road was realigned in the 1980s. The iron bridge over the main line railway, first built for the plateway and then used by Fayle's Tramway, still stands. ==References==