Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> If all Knaresborough people had been gifted with the foresight of Mother Shipton their town’s famous prophetess Knaresborough might have become the birthplace of the world’s first steam worked public railway. In 1802 the building of a railway about 1? miles long from Knaresborough to Cold Keld near Scriven was considered. This would have joined a proposed canal to Ellenthorpe Shoals near Boroughbridge where another canal to the Tees was proposed. Cheap Durham coal would then have been available in Knaresborough but when the proposals for the latter canal came to nothing the scheme could not gain sufficient support. In 1818 Thomas Telford made a survey for a canal to provide Knaresborough with cheap coal from the West Riding. He reported there were two routes a canal might take one from the Ouse a mile below Linton Lock another from the Wharfe about a mile above Tadcaster. Unfortunately the number of locks made the cost of either canal prohibitive and it was therefore suggested a canal be built from Acaster Selby on the Ouse to Ribston Green on the Crimple and linked to Knaresborough by a double track railway at an estimated cost of ?92864. The canal scheme was abandoned when it was discovered a railway could be laid from Acaster Selby to Knaresborough for about ?60000 and continued to Pateley Bridge as a single line for an additional ?38830. Later to avoid tolls on the Ouse above the mouth of the Wharfe Bolton Percy replaced Acaster Selby as the proposed eastern terminus. The railway was expected to reduce the price of coal in Knaresborough and the cost of transporting flax the spinning of which was Knaresborough’s main industry by about one third.