Our latest video on youtube is about the magnificent piece of Victorian Engineering Twenty Bridges viaduct which crosses the Douglas Valley. The Viaduct stands just crumbling away but it still has the wow factor as you stand under it. Known locally as Twenty Bridges but there are only nineteen arches and six steel spans. Built in 1882 the bridge was used until 1973. It stands 50 feet in height and almost 1000 feet in length.
It is a shame that it is being left just to crumble away. If the men that built it could see it now I wonder what they would say. We went over just before Christmas and it was quite boggy under foot, so wellies were needed for this walk ! The next Viaduct is known locally as The Dominoes, the track bed was removed some years ago. We could not get close to this one as the footpath was just too wet, we nearly lost our wellies trying to get to it so we sent the drone up instead ! To find out more about the viaducts check out our video on youtube
0 Comments
We have added a new page to the blog all about the old bricks we find on our history adventures, don't just step over the old bricks you see laying on the floor turn them over and check them out, they have history to them as well !
I have brought a couple home that I think are interesting and I know they are old but mostly we just take the photos and do the research when we get home. There are a few I have gone back for though on our next trip and popped them in David's rucksack !! So pop on over to the new page and check it out ! Part three of our series Last Train from Horwich has now been finished and is up on our YouTube channel. We enjoyed making this series of videos and some of the lost railway history we have found surprised us, those pieces of history have been laying in the undergrowth or on the embankments for all of those years, I wonder how many people walk past them and know what they are. We enjoy walking at the weekends so when covid hit and travel restrictions come into force we had to walk from our own doorstep, so one night we got the maps out to look at and found an old map amongst them which showed the site of an old brick works on the moors near us, the video for this is on our YouTube channel ' History on Rivington Moor', so we got the bug then and started looking for more local history on the maps. The railway walk was literally across the road and we did the videos over a few weekends. Here are some of the finds we found whilst doing the videos. This was one of the finds of the day, it is part of a Beware of the Train sign that would have been on the foot crossing, we will be going back to see if we can find any more of the sign ! One of the next finds under one of the railway bridges was this old brick, The Monk & Newell Brickworks was situated on the east side of the Ruabon – Wrexham road It closed in the 1920’s, but we think the brick is older than that because the railway line the bridge was over opened in 1890's, so the bridge would have been built first surely ! Now some women like to collect shoes and handbags, not me , I like to collect Insulators ! This one is a Bullers 1948 insulator, I was so chuffed when we found this complete one just covered with leaves on the embankment, you don't find many complete ones just laying on the ground. This find we could not leave ! Three complete Insulators on part of the telegraph pole, now this would not fit in the ruckscack and we had left our little saw at home so it had to be wrapped in two black bin bags and carried home, while we were walking we got some strange looks and one chap asked David if he had a gun and been shooting !
We have some more things that we have found on these Last Train To Horwich videos and once we have photographed them I will put them on the blog. This new hobby we have found during these tough times this year has kept us going and we look forward to our adventurers at the weekends, so we hope you pay a visit to our youtube channel and see what we get up to ! We start were we left you in Part 2 at the Aspull Pumping pit , after a quick look around we make our way back to the Main line at Hilton house and head down the line looking for bits of forgotten history . Grab your wellies and lets take a walk !! The film has been shot over a few weekends hence the wardrobe change in some clips . click the link below |
AuthorOnce on this spot ArchivesCategories |