The Saughall Massie Bridge

The Saughall Massie Bridge The Thomas Brassey Society was advised in 2005 that the Saughall Massie Bridge on the Wirral was built by Thomas Brassey and his Partner, William Lawton, in 1829. This information was discovered in the Chester Public Records Office by chance and passed on to the Saughall Massie Village Conservation Society (SMVCS). The Secretary of the SMVCS, knowing the significance of this find, put in an application to English Heritage to get the Bridge listed as, at that time, from records that were available when Thomas was only 25, he had not started contracting and this would have been his first bridge. English Heritage awarded the bridge a grade 11 listing and in the citation considered Brassey, “A pre-eminent civil engineering contractor of the 19th Century at the starting point of his illustrious career”. From the documents and specifications revealed in the Chester Records Office, Brassey was requested to supply an ‘Arched Bridge’ and ‘Watering Road’ – a sloping stone roadway leading down to the Arrowebrook pool for use by horses and cattle. All the stone was taken from the Bidston Quarry located a few miles away. The SMVCS raised money from Awards for All and other local donors, installing an interpretation panel and a bronze plaque advising that this was Thomas Brassey’s first bridge. On a glorious April day in 2007 over 200 people from all over the country attended the unveiling including representatives from the Local Authority, schools, the fledgling Thomas Brassey Society, engineers, Councillors, local residents and a number of Brassey family members. An exhibition was set up in a nearby marquee with guides supplied by children from the Overchurch and Blackhorse Hill Primary Schools who had been working on a school project about Thomas. John Whittingham, a Chester Blue Badge Guide, dressed as Thomas Brassey, arrived with his horse and Roger Croston, a founder member of the Society, dressed as Robert Stephenson. Saughall Massie continues to attract a number of interested enthusiasts wishing to see Brassey’s first bridge designed for horses and carts and now taking juggernauts. -oOo- .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Cefn Viaduct.Pdf
The Cefn Viaduct Cefn Mawr Viaduct The Chester and Shrewsbury railway runs at the eastern end of the Vale of Llangollen, beyond the parish boundary, passing through Cefn Mawr on route from Chester to Shrewsbury. It is carried over the River Dee by a stupendous viaduct, half a mile down stream from the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It measures one thousand five hundred and eight feet in length, and stands one hundred and forty-seven feet above the level of the river. The structure is supported by nineteen arches with sixty foot spans. In 1845 rival schemes were put forward for railway lines to join Chester with Shrewsbury. Promoters of the plan to link Shrewsbury to Chester via Ruabon had to work quickly to get their scheme moving. Instructions for the notices and plans were only given on the 7th November and they had to be deposited with the clerk of Peace by the 30th November 1845. Hostility from objecting landowners meant that Robertson had to survey the land by night. One irate squire expressed a wish that someone would 'throw Robertson and his theodolite into the canal'. Henry Robertson told a Parliamentary Committee of the advantage of providing a railway line that would open up coalfields of Ruabon and Wrexham to markets at Chester, Birkenhead and Liverpool in the north and to Shrewsbury and other Shropshire towns on the south side. The Parliamentary Committee agreed with him and the bill received Royal Assent on 30th June 1845. The Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Company made good progress with construction work and the line to Ruabon from the north was opened in November 1846.
[Show full text]
Normanhurst and the Brassey Family
NORMANHURST AND THE BRASSEY FAMILY Today, perhaps, it is only architects whose names live with their engineered creations. Those who build bridges, roads and railways are hidden within the corporations responsible, but in the nineteenth century they could be national heroes. They could certainly amass considerable wealth, even if they faced remarkable risks in obtaining it. One of the – perhaps the greatest – was the first Thomas Brassey. Brassey was probably the most successful of the contractors, was called a European power, through whose accounts more flowed in a year than through the treasuries of a dozen duchies and principalities, but he was such a power only with his navvies. Brassey's work took him and his railway business across the world, from France to Spain, Italy, Norway, what is now Poland, the Crimea, Canada, Australia, India and South America, quite apart from major works in the UK. His non-railway work was also impressive: docks, factories and part of Bazalgette's colossal sewerage and embankment project in London that gave us, among more important things, the Victoria and Albert Embankments, new streets and to some extent the District and Circle Lines. By 1870 he had built one mile in every twenty across the world, and in every inhabited continent. When he died at the (Royal) Victoria Hotel at St Leonards on 8 December 1870 Brassey left close to £3,200,000, a quite enormous sum that in today's terms would probably have been over a thousand million. He had been through some serious scares when his contracts had not yielded what he had expected, and in the bank crisis of 1866, but he had survived Thomas Brassey, contractor (or probably it his son Thomas) to build the colossal country house of Normanhurst Court in the parish of Catsfield.
[Show full text]
TV/Series, 9 | 2016, « Guerres En Séries (I) » [En Ligne], Mis En Ligne Le 01 Mars 2016, Consulté Le 18 Mai 2021
TV/Series 9 | 2016 Guerres en séries (I) Séries et guerre contre la terreur TV series and war on terror Marjolaine Boutet (dir.) Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/617 DOI : 10.4000/tvseries.617 ISSN : 2266-0909 Éditeur GRIC - Groupe de recherche Identités et Cultures Référence électronique Marjolaine Boutet (dir.), TV/Series, 9 | 2016, « Guerres en séries (I) » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 01 mars 2016, consulté le 18 mai 2021. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/617 ; DOI : https:// doi.org/10.4000/tvseries.617 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 18 mai 2021. TV/Series est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modiﬁcation 4.0 International. 1 Ce numéro explore de façon transdisciplinaire comment les séries américaines ont représenté les multiples aspects de la lutte contre le terrorisme et ses conséquences militaires, politiques, morales et sociales depuis le 11 septembre 2001. TV/Series, 9 | 2016 2 SOMMAIRE Préface. Les séries télévisées américaines et la guerre contre la terreur Marjolaine Boutet Détours visuels et narratifs Conflits, filtres et stratégies d’évitement : la représentation du 11 septembre et de ses conséquences dans deux séries d’Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing (NBC, 1999-2006) et The Newsroom (HBO, 2012-2014) Vanessa Loubet-Poëtte « Tu n’as rien vu [en Irak] » : Logistique de l’aperception dans Generation Kill Sébastien Lefait Between Unsanitized Depiction and ‘Sensory Overload’: The Deliberate Ambiguities of Generation Kill (HBO, 2008) Monica Michlin Les maux de la guerre à travers les mots du pilote Alex dans la série In Treatment (HBO, 2008-2010) Sarah Hatchuel 24 heures chrono et Homeland : séries emblématiques et ambigües 24 heures chrono : enfermement spatio-temporel, nœud d’intrigues, piège idéologique ? Monica Michlin Contre le split-screen.
[Show full text]
British Family Names
cs 25o/ £22, Cornrll IBniwwitg |fta*g BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Hcnrti W~ Sage 1891 A.+.xas.Q7- B^llll^_ DATE DUE ,•-? AUG 1 5 1944 !Hak 1 3 1^46 Dec? '47T Jan 5' 48 ft e Univeral, CS2501 .B23 " v Llb«"y Brit mii!Sm?nS,£& ori8'" and m 3 1924 olin 029 805 771 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029805771 BRITISH FAMILY NAMES. : BRITISH FAMILY NAMES ftbetr ©riain ano fIDeaning, Lists of Scandinavian, Frisian, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman Names. HENRY BARBER, M.D. (Clerk), "*• AUTHOR OF : ' FURNESS AND CARTMEL NOTES,' THE CISTERCIAN ABBEY OF MAULBRONN,' ( SOME QUEER NAMES,' ' THE SHRINE OF ST. BONIFACE AT FULDA,' 'POPULAR AMUSEMENTS IN GERMANY,' ETC. ' "What's in a name ? —Romeo and yuliet. ' I believe now, there is some secret power and virtue in a name.' Burton's Anatomy ofMelancholy. LONDON ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1894. 4136 CONTENTS. Preface - vii Books Consulted - ix Introduction i British Surnames - 3 nicknames 7 clan or tribal names 8 place-names - ii official names 12 trade names 12 christian names 1 foreign names 1 foundling names 1 Lists of Ancient Patronymics : old norse personal names 1 frisian personal and family names 3 names of persons entered in domesday book as HOLDING LANDS temp. KING ED. CONFR. 37 names of tenants in chief in domesday book 5 names of under-tenants of lands at the time of the domesday survey 56 Norman Names 66 Alphabetical List of British Surnames 78 Appendix 233 PREFACE.
[Show full text]
Huguenot Merchants Settled in England 1644 Who Purchased Lincolnshire Estates in the 18Th Century, and Acquired Ayscough Estates by Marriage
List of Parliamentary Families 51 Boucherett Origins: Huguenot merchants settled in England 1644 who purchased Lincolnshire estates in the 18th century, and acquired Ayscough estates by marriage. 1. Ayscough Boucherett – Great Grimsby 1796-1803 Seats: Stallingborough Hall, Lincolnshire (acq. by mar. c. 1700, sales from 1789, demolished first half 19th c.); Willingham Hall (House), Lincolnshire (acq. 18th c., built 1790, demolished c. 1962) Estates: Bateman 5834 (E) 7823; wealth in 1905 £38,500. Notes: Family extinct 1905 upon the death of Jessie Boucherett (in ODNB). BABINGTON Origins: Landowners at Bavington, Northumberland by 1274. William Babington had a spectacular legal career, Chief Justice of Common Pleas 1423-36. (Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England, 36-39) Five MPs between 1399 and 1536, several kts of the shire. 1. Matthew Babington – Leicestershire 1660 2. Thomas Babington – Leicester 1685-87 1689-90 3. Philip Babington – Berwick-on-Tweed 1689-90 4. Thomas Babington – Leicester 1800-18 Seat: Rothley Temple (Temple Hall), Leicestershire (medieval, purch. c. 1550 and add. 1565, sold 1845, remod. later 19th c., hotel) Estates: Worth £2,000 pa in 1776. Notes: Four members of the family in ODNB. BACON [Frank] Bacon Origins: The first Bacon of note was son of a sheepreeve, although ancestors were recorded as early as 1286. He was a lawyer, MP 1542, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal 1558. Estates were purchased at the Dissolution. His brother was a London merchant. Eldest son created the first baronet 1611. Younger son Lord Chancellor 1618, created a viscount 1621. Eight further MPs in the 16th and 17th centuries, including kts of the shire for Norfolk and Suffolk.
[Show full text]
Hunter's Hand Book of Victoria Bridge, Illustrated with Wood-Cuts. a Brief
^ta. l^v-t dqe Cthtmt'a Uttmerattj SJtbrarg . ^<VU^ BL,SH l &!iv,IX.Jl(NTER^ p'CKup . GRAND TRUNK VICTORIA BRIDGE CELEBRATIOI NOW READY EOMTEI ft.PiiC WITH two LirnoGBAPHic views, In Three Tints, (Summer and Winter). Size of each Plate x 8 inches, executed in the best style of the Art, by Saroj Major & Knapp, of New York. The work is dedicated, by permission, to the Grand Tr Railway Company of Canada. HUNTER & PICKUP having purchased the Electrotypes Plates, together with the Copyright of " Hunter's Panora Guide from Niagara to Quebec," of J. P. Jewett & Co., Bos former Proprietors and Publishers, have made arrangem* with Mr. J. Lovell, Printer and Publisher, Montreal, and now prepared to receive orders, wholesale and retail. On the receipt of one dollar, post paid, the two View Victoria Bridge, with Hand Book, will be sent, free of post to any. part of Canada. For $1, 25cts. the Hand-Book Views will be sent to England, Ireland or Scotland, neatly cured in wrappers. The two Views without the Hand-Boot $1, free of any other charge. To be had at the Book Stores in Town and Country ; i News-boys on board the Cars, and at rad&B&zg »w &m ADJOINING Post Office, Montreal. Orders from Great Britain, United States, and the Bri Provinces, to the undersigned, post paid, will receive mimed attention. HUNTER <Sr PICKUji Montreal, July, 1860. HUNTEE'S HAND BOOK OF l .„ THE VICTORIA BRIDGE. — ENTRANCE TO THE VICTORIA BRIDGE. The inscription on the lintel over the entrance to the abu t.
[Show full text]
The Simonton Literary Prize on Robert Hope-Jones. Awarded to D. Hyde at the 2007 A.T.O.S
The Simonton Literary Prize was established in honour if Richard Simonton who was a founder of the American Theater Organ Enthusiasts, which eventually became known as the American Theatre Organ Society (A.T.O.S.) The purpose of the prize is to encourage and reward original research and writing in the area of theatre organ history, restoration and conversation. The work of Don Hyde, chairman of the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust, on the new research into Hope-Jones and the people he has made contact with has entered new grounds in the history associated with theatre organs This, plus a little bit of arm twisting resulted in Don writing this paper which was submitted for the Simonton prize in 2007. The prize was awarded to Don Hyde at the American Theatre Organ Society Convention in New York in 2007. The purpose of this paper is to record the recent research that has been carried out into the world of Robert Hope-Jones and the people who lived and worked in his environment and whom he met during the course of some of the work he did during his organ manufacturing time in Great Britain before he emigrated to the United States. The Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust has been troubled for some time that almost all of the original pipe organs built in Britain by Hope- Jones have been totally rebuilt, dramatically modified over the years by various organ builders, or have been scrapped. Since its foundation in 1968 the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust has been acutely aware of its close proximity to the birthplace of Robert Hope-Jones and to the area at Birkenhead on the Wirral in Cheshire where he started his ground breaking work on pipe organs.
[Show full text]
Joseph Iocke Had Never Lost Sight of His Desire to Link His Grandjrmction Line to Carlisle and Beyond
The - JosephIocke Memorial and A Short History of the Exeter and Crediton Railwav Published on the Occasionof the 160thArniversary of the Opning of the I'lxeter and Crediton Railway ' 12thMay 2011 IN'I'RODUC'TION History abounds with exemplary cbaracters who, fol some obscure reason or another, have failed to gain the recognition they desewe. In the field of early railr.tay civil engineering Joseph tocke is the paramount paradign. 'fhis pre-eminent British engineer was responsible {or handing dowrr courtless miles of superbly engircercd railr*ay; building the lirst trunl< lines of foru countries, including Britain; bequeadring to posterity a design of back sdll basically in use, to a gauge universally adopted and which he al- rays championed; building to cost, rnore cheaply than just about anyone else; with no unnecessary cxtavagance; usually to time - sometimes belbre; firrishing olf projecb on which othen had fourdercd; never suffcring that igrominy himsclf. No-one else maraged this. His works, quiedy and effi- ciently man4ged aurdconshrrcted, boasted of nothing but consumnaûo con- hdence, and unassuming compctence: he nevcr really made any bad mis- tahes, :md his name was never bardied about iùnongst those guilq' of the lavish ald thc dramatic, meaning also the cosdy and the unwarranted. Nor did he become embroiled in dcad-end technologies, such as a[nosphcric propulsion, always lending his narne and his effots to the promotion of the locomotive errgine, a policy leamt at the hands of his early menkrr, George Stcphcnson. \4/hilst Gcorgc's son Robeft, a civil engineering giant in his own right, de- veloped the science of the locomotive alongsidc other budding mechanical engineels, Joe concentrated ou building the lines: the characteristic I-ockian practice of around or over, rather than through, exercised the in- creasing power of ûre locomolives of his age, :urd provided Brihin with its most cost-effective pioneer railnays.
[Show full text]
Swing Bridge Project Board 2020 Version.Indd
Rewley Road Swing Bridge Restoration Project The Rewley Road swing bridge was completed in 1851 for the Buckinghamshire Railway, backed by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) to serve an Oxford terminus and sidings, now the Said Business School and Rewley Park. The bridge is protected as a scheduled ancient monument because it is an outstanding example of Victorian railway engineering, but it also has many stories to tell about nineteenth century transport history. The last train ran over the bridge in 1984. From then, it was always hoped it could be restored LMS locomotive 8106 reversing into over the swing bridge into the ‘Shipley’ sidings in 1942. Credit: R H G Simpson. Restoration by Oxford Preservation Trust, with the help of partners, is now ﬁ nally underway. Oxford Rewley Road LNWR Station forecourt in 1914. Credit: Oxfordshire County Libraries. Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) The Swing Bridge Oxford’s Railway History Robert Stephenson was the The Buckinghamshire railway brought coal to Oxford from the midlands and provided passenger In the mid-19th century railway companies competed to engineer to the LNWR. His father, services via Bletchley to London Euston Station and to Cambridge from 1862 (The Varsity Line). provide links to Oxford. In 1844 the Great Western Railway George, was a railway pioneer. (GWR) opened a terminus south of the Thames. The track The line approached the city from the north, crossing a branch of the Thames, the Sheepwash Robert co-founded the world’s was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the GWR’s engineer, Channel, to reach its terminus and adjacent ‘Shipley’ sidings on the site of the former Rewley Abbey.
[Show full text]
Correspondence. Thomas Stevenson, M.D., F.R.C.P
423 an address to the assembled candidates. In his discourse during 1879. The deaths showed a further decline of 41 his lordship referred to the organisation of the school by his from the decreasing numbers returned in recent weeks. friend the late Lord Herbert, and its subsequent progress, The annual death-rate in the twenty towns, which had de. to the changes which had taken place in the medical de- creased from 37’0 to 23’1 in the four preceding weeks, partment of the army during recent years, and especially further fell to 22’1 last week. During the past nine weeks dwelt on the advantages which had been conferred on its the death-rate in these towns averaged 26’9 per 1000, against officers by the new Medical Warrant, and indirectly, he 25’8 and 27’0 in the corresponding periods of 1878 and 1879. believed, on the army at. large. He warmly congratulated The lowest death-rates in the twenty towns last week were the candidates who had just completed the final steps neces- 17’5 in Bradford, 18’8 in Bristol, 19’0 in Birmingham, and sary for obtaining their commissions in the various branches 19’4 in Portsmouth. The rates in the other towns ranged of the public medical service, and after some other observa- upwards to 22’9 in London, 24’6 in Liverpool, 25’5 in tions on the careers which were now opening to them, Nottingham, and 28’5 in Plymouth. The death-rate in asked the gentlemen who had been named as the winners Plymouth has now shown a marked excess during many of the several prizes to step forward.
[Show full text]
Thomas Brassey Society
THOMAS BRASSEY The unsung hero of railway engineering Thomas Brassey 1805-1870 Thomas Brassey was born in Buerton on the outskirts of By 1841 Brassey’s name was becoming widely known and Chester in 1805. After a school education in Chester he he started building railways abroad – the first being the 82 commenced training as a surveyor with a Mr Lawton in 1821, mile Paris to Rouen railway – the first in France. By 1848 and gained practical experience whilst assisting in the Brassey had built three quarters of the entire French railway surveying of Telford’s Shrewsbury to Holyhead road, now system! known as the A5. When the Paris to Rouen railway was opened in May 1843 Lawton was a Land Agent and Surveyor for several wealthy Brassey gave an open air banquet where 600 of his workmen landowners including Francis Richard Price of Overton, near sat down. A whole ox was roasted by three French chefs and Wrexham, whose estates included the small township of the French became so agitated at the prospect of 600 British Birkenhead which, at that time, consisted of a few straggling navvies going on the rampage that they ringed the field with houses close to Birkenhead Priory on a rather bleak headland their cavalry. In the same year he built the Station at Chester facing Liverpool across the Mersey. Lawton, though, like and in addition to building the railway lines, he also built the others, felt that Birkenhead had development potential and in trains! 1826, after taking Brassey into partnership, opened an office By 1853 he had moved into new premises – the Canada there which Brassey was to supervise.
[Show full text]
The Cuckoo- 8
The May 2021 MudefordYour Local Community Magazine Mag www.themudefordmag.co.uk 2 May 21 MM Template Thursday, 15 April 2021 12:29 page 2 CALL US TODAY FOR YOUR FREE VALUATION Winkworth Highcliffe 01425 270055 Winkworth Mudeford 01425 274444 @Home EAST caring people Quality care for local people, by local people... •SOUTHBOURNE •HENGISTBURYHEAD •CHRISTCHURCH •MUDEFORD •HIGHCLIFFE ...for the best care for your lovedones contact us today! call 07884 068036 or 01202 259055 www.bettercareathome.co.uk 11 y y 22 a a Welcome to 00 M M 22 The Mudeford Mag 6. Puzzles The Cuckoo- 8. Veterinary Corner a Natural Cheat 20. Book Review 22. All Saints Newsletter 24. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder S2. Local History- Thomas Brassey S6. Child Labour in the 1800’s S10. Supporting the Homeless S12. RNLI Mudeford Lifeboat Guild S S18. Travel-Luxury Cruises 1 1 S20. Authentic Mediterranean Cuisine 4 4 S22. Supporting the Homeless Photo: EdmundFellowes/BTO S24. A Small Garden Haven S26. Speaking the Language S28. Recipe-Apricot Chicken Welcometothe Mudeford Mag! S30. What’s in a Name? May! Such abeautiful time of year and with S32. New Brighton Lighthouse twobankholidayslooming,warmerweather and lockdown graduallyeasing, things are 58. Financial Matters definitely on theup! 62. Gluten Free Flapjack Recipe Apartfrommissing family andfriends, 64. Sky Watching holidaysseemtobeupper most in peoples 70. Protecting Our Planet mindsoncerestrictions have finally lifted.If 75. Tom’s Monthly Poem youare consideringtravelling further afield youmay be interestedinthe travel
[Show full text]