Mr Williamson's railway

In 1840 Robert Williamson opened the Tower Hill Colliery in Staffordshire, to the east of Mow Cop. To take coal to the markets available along the Macclesfield Canal he constructed a railway of 4ft 8ins gauge connecting Tower Hill and his nearby Trubshaw colliery to a wharf on the canal at Kent Green. Construction was under way quickly and the major work, a tunnel through the hill at Mow Cop, was being driven by February 1842. The line opened on Boxing Day 1842.

On the west side of the tunnel the line descended via two self-acting inclines to Kent Green. This view is from the remains of the embankment of the lower incline, looking down to where the line passed under the North Staffordshire Railway just before the wharf which is behind the long brick building that incorporates a canal warehouse. The white gable end is a building associated with the coal wharf. There is no trace of the underbridge by which the line passed under the main line railway, but it was situated just to the right of the road bridge.

The line closed with the pit in 1887.