River Stour
The Severn Valley Railway is naturally most associated with the River Severn, whose course it follows closely between Shrewsbury and Bewdley. However the towns of Kidderminster and Stourport lie on the River Stour.
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The Stour and the Severn Valley Railway
The Stour rises in the Clent Hills in north Worcestershire, initially following a generally north-easterly course, before turning north into the West Midlands at Halesowen. From there it flows through Cradley and Lye and then between Stourbridge, to which it gives its name, and Amblecote. It leaves the West Midlands conurbation at Wollaston and enters Staffordshire at Prestwood. Turning southwards, it is then shadowed on its eastern bank by the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal through Stourton and Kinver, from where it flows back into Worcestershire.[1]
After passing through the villages of Caunsall, Cookley and Wolverley, the Stour and Canal bisect Kidderminster from north to south. The Stour also passes underneath the canal at Kidderminster to emerge on its eastern side. South of Kidderminster, the Stour and canal pass under the Kidderminster Loop Line, now part of the present-day SVR, at Falling Sands Viaduct.
Falling Sands Viaduct (Geograph)
After passing the formerly navigable section around Wilden, the Stour is crossed by a large viaduct west of Stourport which carried the former Severn Valley Railway (the Stourport Branch) over it. It finally enters the River Severn at Stourport, in a small, old industrial area to the east of the canal port.
Viaduct over the Stour at Stourport
During the 1660s several Acts of Parliament were passed with the intention of ensuring that smaller rivers including the Stour in Worcestershire should be navigable, by maintaining a suitable depth of water.[2][note 1] Around that time an ironworks was established at Wilden (later taken over by the Baldwin family, ancestors of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, in 1840). After the opening of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal in 1771, a lock was built in 1835 at Pratt's Wharf[note 2] which connected the canal and river, enabling canal barges to use the River Stour to deliver iron and coal to the works, and also timber to a steam saw-mill in Wilden.[1]
By the time the Severn Valley Railway opened in 1862, the Staffordshire & Worcestershire canal was well established. In the 1880s the GWR built an interchange basin next to Mitton Bridge at Stourport. This allowed the railway to deliver iron and coal destined for the ironworks. Why the GWR did not also construct a short branch line at the same time to complete the connection is unclear,[3][note 3] but the final stage of the journey continued to use the canal and river link until around 1950.[1]
OS 6-inch map of the River Stour and Wilden Works
The extract from the OS 6-inch map (1888-1913) above shows the area referred to. The canal interchange basin to the east of Stourport Station is at the bottom of the map. From there, goods proceeded by barge north to Platt's Wharf at the top of the map, and thence south via the River Stour to Wilden Works.
Although parts of the Stour were navigable, the canal would have carried more trade and therefore the Stour probably had little direct impact on the Railway in comparison with the Severn.
Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stour Valley Railway
The main line from Birmingham to Wolverhampton via Smethwick which opened in 1852, and which is still in use today, is commonly known as the "Stour Valley Line".[4] The name is a contraction of that of the Company that built it, the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stour Valley Railway. The "Stour Valley" referred to a branch (proposed but never built) from Smethwick following the River Stour via Stourbridge and Kidderminster to its junction with the Severn at Stourport.[5]
See also
Notes
- ↑ Making rivers navigable required Acts of Parliament in order to overcome the opposition of engineers who were concerned that the depth of water might result in flooding and carters who were concerned that they might lose business.
- ↑ Shown as Platt's Wharf on OS Maps
- ↑ A branch line from Stourport to the Wilden Ironworks may have been too expensive for the volume traffic it would have carried. Also the land between is noted on the OS map as "Liable to floods".
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Wikipedia
- ↑ British Canals, Charles Hadfield, 1950, p. 23.
- ↑ Marshall (1989) p. 89.
- ↑ Stour Valley Line on Wikipedia
- ↑ Worcestershire Chronicle, 20 August 1845, via the British Newspaper Archive