Jack Singleton’s search for the tramway that once ran along the Atherfield coastline has turned up far more than he expected.
After his original video and OnTheWight’s article went out, the Wight Wanderer creator was contacted by railway researcher John Maskell, along with local Atherfield residents Barbara and Geoff Phillips.
The three arranged a visit to the area together.
John told Jack he had been present during a visit to the site back in the early 1970s, when he took his own photographs of the tramway and drew a map of its route.
Because of that record, he can now pinpoint almost exactly where the line ran.
A pebble pit with its own incline
Jack then met Barbara and Geoff, who own land that once housed a pebble extraction facility. The facility closed just before the Second World War.
Barbara and Geoff confirmed that this site also had a tramway, one of an inclined nature, and showed Jack around the area.
They gave him detail that doesn’t survive in any archive, including the rail gauge used and how long the facility sat abandoned once it shut.
A second site to the north-west
From there the group headed north-west up the coast, to a location Barbara and Geoff believed might interest Jack: an old sand pit, long since filled in.
The site is now indistinguishable on the landscape, but Geoff knew its exact location, having been involved in filling it in himself.
Barbara confirmed that this pit had a tramway too, one likely used during construction of the ‘new’ Military Road in the 1930s.
The pair also produced photographs of the area from its industrial days.
Between John’s research and Barbara and Geoff’s local knowledge, Jack now knows of three light railways that operated in the area, rather than the single line he set out to find.
Watch the video
Watch Jack explain this and more, by clicking on the video below. Once playing make full screen by clicking on the icon in the bottom right-hand corner. Make sure you sound is turned up.
Visit Wight Wanderer’s channel on YouTube for more interesting and informative videos.
