The Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway (P&DR) was a gauge railway built to improve the economy of moorland areas around Princetown in Devon, England. Independent carriers operated horse-drawn wagons and paid the company a toll. It opened in 1823, and a number of short branches were built in the next few years.
The Lee Moor Tramway (LMT) was opened as a branch of the original line in 1856; the extraction of china clay had become an important industry, and the LMT brought the mineral down to processing areas and to shipment at Plymouth. The LMT too operated with horse traction, in conjunction with steam locomotives and rope worked inclines.
The Omen Beam Tramway was an independent tramway for the gathering of peat from the moor above Dartmoor prison, for the manufacturing of naphtha.
The P&DR cost much more than the estimate and the intended generation of agriculture on the moor did not take place. The railway was dominated by a trading company who used it for bringing granite to Plymouth for coastal shipping transport. China clay deposits on Lee Moor were exploited and a branch of the P&DR was built to bring the mineral to Plymouth. The original P&DR line declined and its upper section was later adopted for the Princetown Railway branch line, but the LMT branch, and a short section of the lower end of the P&DR, remained in use until 1960. The line crossed the important Exeter to Plymouth main line on the flat, and many photographs have been circulated depicting the incongruous sight of the horse-drawn wagons crossing the busy main line railway.
Origins
Conception
Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt was a substantial and philanthropic landowner in Devon and Cornwall. He had founded the settlement that he called Princetown, on Dartmoor, and he was anxious to improve the living conditions of the inhabitants. Dartmoor prison had been completed at Princetown in 1809 as a prisoner-of-war detention facility, but the peace following 1815 emptied the prison.
Tyrwhitt wished to improve agriculture and extractive industries on Dartmoor, and he conceived the idea of a railway to connect Princetown and Plymouth. This was to bring lime and sea-sand up to the Moor for the improvement of land, together with timber and coal. Granite, peat, mineral products and agricultural produce would be carried down. Goods would be conveyed in wagons drawn by horses, on the turnpike principle, in which all-comers might run their wagons on the railway on payment of a toll.
He put forward proposals at Plymouth Chamber of Commerce in 1818 suggesting an 18% return on capital, and obtained subscribers, and a line was surveyed by William Shillabear of Walkhampton, a schoolmaster and surveyor. William Stuart was the engineer supervising the construction of the Plymouth Breakwater at the time, and this had a primitive internal tramway at the stoneyard. Stuart provided a cost estimate for the construction, and a Parliamentary bill was submitted to form the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway, with Stuart as its Engineer. It was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 2 July 1819 with capital of £27,783, authorising it to build from Crabtree to Princetown.
Tyrwhitt ceremonially laid the first rail on 12 August 1819, but in fact contracts had not yet been let for the construction, and some re-appraisal of the engineering of the railway was to intervene. At a Committee meeting on 26 July 1819 Stuart had been instructed to re-survey the line.
Extension to Sutton Pool, and first contracts
The line was to run from Crabtree to Princetown; Crabtree was chosen because it gave access to tidal water, at a small dock on the River Plym near the Rising Sun Inn there. The location was about east of the centre of Plymouth. However, the wharf would only be accessible at high tide and the river approach was lengthy and awkward, and it was decided to extend the course of the railway westward to reach Sutton Pool. Accordingly, a further Act of Parliament, passed on 8 August 1820, was needed authorising the extension, and also a branch to the Cattewater. This added £7,200 to the projected cost of the line. The whole of this extension was referred to as the branch railway, being considered a branch from Crabtree. William Stuart was now appointed to superintend the construction. At this time the company had contemplated acting as dealers in granite, that is suppliers of the mineral at Plymouth, rather than simply carriers. There is reason to believe from Committee minutes that they intended to do so, but the necessary clauses were not inserted into the 1820 Act.