Aerial Ropeways & Inclined Planes

Mandalls Slate Co Ltd worked a number of quarries on the slopes of Coniston Old Man. The main processing area was the mill at Saddlestone to where the slate 'clogs' were brought down by an aerial ropeway. Remains of the ropeway are still evident right up the hill with both fixed and moving ropes lying on the ground. The collapsed wooden framework was the start of the next flight of the ropeway.

Fallen pylon from the aerial ropeway that brought slate down from the mines and quarrieson the slopes of Coniston Old Man to the mill at Saddlestone. The castings show that the ropeway was manufactured by the Widnes firm of Richard White and Sons.

The Ronquières Inclined Plane on the Brussels-Charleroi Canal has a length of 1,432 m and lifts boats through 67.73 m vertically. It consists of two large caissons mounted on rails. Each caisson measures 91 m long by 12 m wide and has a water depth between 3 and 3.70 m. It can carry one boat of 1,350 tonnes or many smaller boats within the same limits. It opened in April 1968 and replaced 14 locks. The approach across country yielded this strange vista with the approach aqueduct to the left, the viewing tower centre, and the inclined plane dipping away to the right.

Disused drum house for an inclined plane at the very top of the Garret side of Dinorwic slate quarry. The land in the far distance is Anglesey.

The Cracken Edge Quarries above Chinley in Derbyshire comprise a series of faces stretching over a distance of around 1 kilometre. The products were transported down to the nearest road via a long incline of which there are still substantial remains of the winding drum over a hundred years after closure.

View down bottom section of incline to coal processing area at Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996. The electric hauler was in the open-fronted shed at the bottom. The drift is situated beneath the air receiver on the right.

Drift entrance and view up incline to coal processing area at Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996.

Drift entrance and incline to coal processing area at Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996.

Although out of use for well over a century the remains of a winding drum can still be found at the top of the Cracken Edge Quarry incline.

High up in the Dinorwic quarries this table incline looks almost ready to receive wagons for the mills that were situated lower down. It is forty years since work finished here.

George Hargreaves & Co sank the shaft of Grimebridge Colliery in 1851 and soon after a 'ginny road' was built across the moors to transport the coal tubs to the road up the valley from Waterfoot. At the site of the Fox Hill colliery the chain hauled line became a steep incline which crossed a wooden viaduct and then passed through along tunnel to reach the staith. The line operated for at least 90 years before the coal was routed through the hill to a wharf near Old Meadows on the Bacup to Burnley road. This is the point where the ginney line changed angle and started down the incline at Fox Hill. It is now in a ruinous condition and the land around had been changed through tipping and reclamation such that the surface arrangements here are no longer clear.

Standard gauge railways reached the Poynton Collieries in 1845 with the opening of a branch of the Manchester and Birmingham Railway from a junction with the Macclesfield line up to the Albert Pit. A coal yard was laid out on the east side the turnpike road level crossing from which landsales were made and trains assembled for dispatch onto the main line. By 1848, a further line was constructed from this yard to the Lord and Lady Pits at Hockley. It was known as the Lady's Incline and comprised a self-acting incline some 600 yards long at a gradient of 1 in 40, followed by some 400 yards at an easier inclination until Lord Pit was reached. The self-acting incline continued in use until 1882 when it was converted to locomotive operation following the purchase of a tank locomotive from Walker Brothers of Wigan. When the collieries closed in 1935 the tracks were soon removed and the incline became a public footpath, well used by local people. In 1984 the local council undertook improvements to the surface and during preparatory works the remains of the top wheelpit and rope guides for the self-acting incline were revealed. These were left in-situ and a course of bricks laid on top to represent the structures below the surface. This has survived well, as can be seen in this recent view looking down the incline across the wheelpit.

Disused table incline high up in the Dinorwic quarries in North Wales. Both tables were lying at the foot of the incline with a piece just visible lower left. The quarry workings were abandoned in 1969.

The cliff lift at Saltburn-by-the-Sea is one of the oldest in the world having opened on 28th June 1884 having replaced a vertical lift that was closed in 1883 on safety grounds. This standard gauge funicular railway operates on the water balance system and raises passengers up the 120ft cliff on a gradient of 1:1.33. The bottom station for the lift is situated behind the red and cream painted buildings which are associated with the 1869 pier on which I was stood.

The limestone quarries at Penmon Park were operating in the early nineteenth century. By 1875 the workings were connected to a saw mill and jetty at Porth Penmon by a 3ft 6ins gauge incline. At this time the quarries were in the control of Samuel Blatchford Tucker and the Anglesea (Penmon) Marble Quarries Co Ltd. This company was liquidated in 1879 and followed by Public Works & Contract Co Ltd (registered in1883 and liquidated in 1890), Penmon Quarries Ltd (1886 - 1891). From 1890 the quarries were worked by John Harold Hope until closure in 1911. The route of the incline can be seen passing under the Penmon road in the centre background of this photo. The piers and timbers in the foreground once held a travelling crane, whilst the stone building to the right is the remains of the sawmill.

Two drifts, screens and an incline up onto the waste tips. A typical Chinese small coal mine at Hongshila in the Nanpiao District.

Little is known about the history of the Cracken Edge quarries. What is clear is that they were closed by the later nineteenth century and that they had an inclined plane to take the product down to the road. The drumhouse for the incline still has substantial remains, including some of the drum itself. Taken on a fine summer's evening, the background shows the railway viaducts at the triangular junction at Chapel Milton, and also the Chapel-en-le-Frith bypass.

Peeking into the big hole at the Dinorwic slate quarry from near to the highest level. Llanberis lurks on the right beyond the incline drum house..