Devon (England) -- Social life and customs; Wreyland (England)
There really must have been wheeled traffic hereabouts long before the
memory of the oldest folk I ever knew. When they said that they
remembered the first cart, I think they must have meant the first cart
used for farm-work on the fields. And in the passage I have quoted,
Moore only says that a pair of wheels was scarcely to be seen on a farm
in the county, not, scarcely to be seen on the roads. But so long as
farmers used pack-saddles on their fields, they would use them on the
roads as well; and in an agricultural district there would not be much
other traffic.
The ancient Britons had wagons of some sort in this part of England long
before the Romans came here. They used them for bringing down the ingots
from the tin mines to the coast, though these ingots went on pack-horses
across France to Marseilles. In narrating this, Diodoros says (v. 22)
that the ingots were cast in the shape of an astragalos; and an ingot of
about that shape was found in Falmouth harbour, and is now in the Museum
at Truro. It would hook on to a pack-saddle, and it weighs about 160
lbs., so that a pair would make a load.
A century ago a tramway was laid down for bringing granite from the
Haytor quarries to the head of the Teigngrace canal, where the granite
was transferred to barges and went on to Teignmouth to be shipped. The
quarries are about 1200 feet above the head of the canal, and the
distance is about six miles in a straight line: so the tramway goes
winding round upon an easier gradient, and thus comes within two miles
of here. The lines are formed of granite slabs of no fixed size, but
usually four or five feet long and one to two feet wide; and they are
put down lengthways, with nothing in between them to impede the horses.
Each slab has a level surface, about six inches wide, as a track for the
wheels, and an upright surface, two or three inches high, to prevent
their running off the track; but the remainder of the slab is rough. The
gauge is fifty inches between the out-sides of the upright surfaces, and
therefore fifty inches between the in-sides of the wheels. This tramway
was completed in 1820, and carried down granite for London Bridge, the
British Museum, the General Post Office, and other buildings of that
time. But it was abandoned when the quarries failed, and now its slabs
are used for building or broken up for mending roads.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account