I missed this book that was released in 2011, its a fully illustrated, well
reserached and pra quality production
* The Brendon Hills Iron Mines and the West Somerset Mineral
Railway<http://moorebooks.co.uk/shelves/cart.php?target=product&sns_mode=featured_product&product_id=20118&category_id=249>
*
M H Jones, HB, 275x210mm, Printed on gloss art paper, casebound with
colour dustjacket.
(publishers description) The industrial history of Great Britain records
numerous enterprises which failed to fulfil expectations and have since
vanished almost without trace. Few can have involved so much expenditure,
for so little reward, as the opening and development of the iron mines on
the Brendon Hills in West Somerset and the construction of the standard
gauge West Somerset Mineral Railway to carry the ore to Watchet harbour for
shipment to Newport. The 1 in 4 incline, more than a kilometre in length,
which carried the line to the summit of the Brendon Hills was perhaps the
most significant standard gauge incline in the country and makes this
little railway unique. Today, traces of mineshafts and adits, of miners’
housing and chapels are evident, and through the upland landscape winds the
trackbed of the former railway, uniting the eastern portion of Exmoor
National Park to the coastal plain. Much of this hidden heritage has been
revealed not only through documentary research and analysis but also by
measured surveys of almost all the extant remains of the mines, both on the
surface and underground, and of the railway’s infrastructure, including
locomotives and rolling stock. Also included herein are many historic
photographs and examples of contemporary ephemera, as well as an extensive
and accomplished description of the lives of the men who lived and worked
within and alongside the mines, and on the railway. Michael Jones, with the
considerable help of the late Roger Sellick and the late John Hamilton, has
here produced a definitive, fully documented, highly readable account of
this 19th century failed enterprise, which nevertheless lingered on into
the 20th century, when attempts to revive the mines failed in a similar
manner. Mining and railway historians, railway modellers, students of
Somerset history and the people of West Somerset will all find much of
interest and value within these pages. This publication has been produced
in conjunction with the Exmoor National Park Authority and has been made
possible by grants from both the Heritage Lottery Fund and from the West
Somerset Village History Society
Price is £24.95 + P&P
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