More Calstock Viaduct celebrations

Last week, Thursday to be more exact, I had blogged about taking part in a guided walk to celebrate the centenary of the viaduct at Calstock. On that Thursday evening there was what was described as "An audience with John Snell and John Newcombe". First up was John Newcombe who delivered a lecture on the building of the viaduct; I had heard this at least twice before but I am for ever fascinated with this piece of local history. At the time of the construction Calstock was fortunate to have a shop owner called Frederick Paul who happened to be fascinated by photography and who every couple of weeks would be out with his camera to record what was happening. John was able to utilise a selection of these photographs to illustrate his lecture. After an interval it was over to John Snell who, in his usual relaxed manner, entertained us with reminiscences of his 40 plus years working at stations on our branch line.

During the last three days of these celebrations (Friday to Sunday) the Calstock Parish Archive mounted an exhibition about the viaduct and we visited yesterday afternoon. Vic and Lynda had done a superb job with it, I wish I could have spent more time there.

There had been other celebratory events in the village which I didn't see - life is never long enough! But at least I got a flavour of it all.

Calstock Viaduct centenary celebrations

Yesterday saw the start of various celebrations marking the centenary of the opening of the Calstock Viaduct. On 8th July 1907 a truckload of spoil made the first crossing of the new viaduct but it wasn't until March 1908 that the connecting lines were completed and open for business. For many years prior to the completion of these works there had been access for goods in and out of the valley via an in inclined railway to The Butts. In 1872 the East Cornwall Mineral Railway was opened from The Butts north to Drakewalls and then around the back of Kit Hill to Kelly Bray. From the bottom of the incline trucks were pulled along to the relevant quay on the riverside by carthorses.

The Calstock Footpath Society had organised a walk on this special day, ably led by David, to include the lower section of the incline not normally accessible to the public and on what turned out to be one of the best days of the summer so far we took advantage of the opportunity presented.

Roger, one of the most assiduous researchers from the Calstock Parish Archive, had previously looked into the history of the incline and his investigation had suggested that the incline railway whose alignment we see today was the third one to be built to get out of this part of the Tamar Valley.

An interesting fact is that the bridges associated with this incline still have to be maintained by 'Network Rail' although one can be sure that they wished that wasn't the case!

This proved to be a fascinating couple of hours that we both thoroughly enjoyed.