ASPECTS OF THE MANCHESTER & LEEDS RAILWAY PART ONE
Photographs from the author’s collection unless otherwise specified.
“Scarcely any railway in England equals the Manchester and Leeds, in the vast number and agreeable variety of views possessed by nearly every locality almost throughout its entire extent.”
We owe this comment to Edwin Butterworth who, being inspired by what he observed, put pen to paper and furnished a descriptive history to accompany A. F. Tait’s Views on the Manchester and Leeds Railway, published in 1845. Butterworth’s comment was certainly true of the section of line between Rochdale and Sowerby Bridge, in a locality in which the railway traversed the backbone of England – the Pennines.
The Pennine barrier separating Lancashire from the West Riding of Yorkshire is at its narrowest in extent, and lowest in elevation. Despite these mitigating characteristics the terrain does its best to thwart those who endeavour to cross from one side to the other. Fortunately, natural features offer a helping hand. The railway made use of the valleys of two rivers: the Roch, which flows south and west, giving its name to Rochdale before uniting with the River Irwell. while flowing north and east is Walsden Water, which forms a confluence with the River Calder at the Pennine town of Todmorden. Before the advent of railways, canal builders took advantage of these valley routes. So successful were they that no tunnels were necessary – only locks. Originating in Manchester, the Rochdale Canal (opened throughout in 1804) passed through Rochdale and then struck east into the White Rose county and, at Sowerby Bridge, formed an end-on waterway junction with the Hebble & Calder Navigation.
Let us return to the observations of Edwin Butterworth who provides a reason why the railway was built: “The effecting of a rapid communication betwixt the metropolis of cotton manufacture, Manchester, and the chief seat of the woollen trade, Leeds, was the principal object which was sought to be attained by the formation of the Manchester and Leeds Railway”.
Butterworth continues in an enthusiastic vein, alluding to the wonders of what was then, without doubt, the new means of communication, not just any railway, but one fashioned out of art of the designer and the skill of the engineer. He noted that the railway was a “splendid triumph of art over the apparently insurmountable barriers of nature” and adds that “This important line of railroad is one of the most stupendous monuments of human skill ever constructed, but also forms the greatest highway of commerce betwixt the Western and Eastern seas.”
At this point Butterworth refers to the determination of Victorian railway promoters, between 1830 and 1845, to form a continuous line of communication from the Irish Sea to the German Ocean (the North Sea). Towards this end, 30 miles of railway were established between Liverpool and Manchester: the Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened for public use on 15th September 1830. From that time onwards the quest was to continue the west-east communication by extending the railway from Manchester to Leeds and thence to the Humber port of Hull.
The purpose of this article is to focus on the pioneering years of the Manchester & Leeds Railway (M&LR) and to examine the physical legacy bequeathed to its successor, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (LYR), especially between the Lancashire cotton town of Rochdale and the West Riding woollen textile town of Sowerby Bridge, a distance of 17¾ miles. It can be argued that the M&LR laid the foundations between 1839 and 1847, when it amalgamated with others into the more expansive LYR.
These 17¾ miles are mostly through Pennine country and
