Claughton Brickworks Ropeway

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Not sure if this belongs on the Coffee Shop - and if it does, whether the the place for it is "Heritage" because it is still there or "History" because you can't travel on it.

As its the last one in the country, I'm not setting a precedent ...

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=451556697771193

In Claughton, Lancashire, the Forterra brickworks produces 50 million bricks a year, from shale that's quarried a mile and a half away. To get that shale to the brickworks: the last aerial ropeway in the country. These used to be common: but now, the last one will be gone by 2036.

[Chris from Nailsea]

No, I couldn't do that - acrophobia, again. 

[Oxonhutch]

Where it crosses an 'A' road there is a bridge built underneath to prevent anything dropping from height onto traffic below.

[CyclingSid]

I think I can remember the ropeway that used to take clay to Grovelands Brickworks in Tilehurst (Reading). There is a picture of a reading bus or trolley going underneath it, but can't locate it at the moment.

Some of the mines in Cornwall used ropeways. A couple of pictures in Peter Stanier's Mines in Cornwall and Devon (Twelveheads Press)

[eightonedee]

I think I can remember the ropeway that used to take clay to Grovelands Brickworks in Tilehurst (Reading). There is a picture of a reading bus or trolley going underneath it, but can't locate it at the moment.

This link to something on Reading Museum's website might help Sid - http://collections.readingmuseum.org.uk/index.asp?page=topic&mwsquery={topic}={Brick%20and%20Tile%20makers}

From this, I'd guess that the picture was of a trolleybus on Norcot Hill, which seems to be on the route of the ropeway (which I cannot remember, although I would have been 10 by the time the works closed in 1966).