Skip to main content

Sandbanks Transporter Bridge

 

Branksome & Swanage Light Railway was a proposal to build a 13 miles line from the County Gates through Branksome Park to Canford Cliffs. From there it would travel to Sandbanks and then to the entrance to Poole Harbour. This would be crossed by a transporter bridge so that the line could make its way onto Swanage.

Promoters of the Scheme argued that it would open up the health giving opportunities of the Isle of Purbeck to Bournemouth & Poole residents as well as making Swanage less isolated. A representative of the promoters was reported as saying that they wanted a pretty route because they ‘did not want to flood Branksome Park with rif-raf!’

A suspended gondola would carry the tram cars across the water at a height of 90 metres so as not to interfere with shipping. There are similar transporter bridges built in both Newport and Middlesbrough. The intended drive system would have used electric motors under the gondola to draw the platform across the harbour mouth by grabbing a tethered chain – in a way not dissimilar to a chain link ferry.

The company planned to raise £266,000 to finance the project to include £30,000 to build the transporter bridge. Annual revenue of £36,000 was projected to yield an £18,100 net profit. Electricity would be provided by the Bournemouth Electricity Supply Company. The service would run for 18 hours every day and cover 700,000 miles every year. Fares would be set at one old penny per mile together with four old pennies (about 2p) to cross the bridge.

Unfortunately for the promoters, the Scheme met widespread opposition to include Bournemouth & Poole Corporations, the Poole Harbour Commissioners, Branksome Park Estate, London & South Western Railway, the Bankes Estate and Wareham & Purbeck Rural District Council. Poole Council had met in December 1905 and had concluded that the proposed Branksome & Swanage Light Railway Scheme offered absolutely no benefit to the town. They feared the potential interference with shipping into and out of Poole and did not want the developers to acquire land that could in future be used for better purposes.

With such overwhelming local opposition, the Light Railway Commissioners felt , whose role was to evaluate the proposal, they had to reject it so the bridge was never built.

However, one can but speculate how different Sandbanks and the Isle of Purbeck would be today if the Branksome & Swanage Light Railway transporter bridge had been built.

(Sources: 1906 copies of Western Gazette & Bournemouth Graphic.)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Panda Pops

Panda  Blue Rasperry Ade, Strawberry Jelly & Ice Cream and Casper Ghostly Limeade were all unique soft drink flavours produced by the Panda Pops brand owned by Badger Beers. Panda Pops were often sold in small bottles of fizzy drink that were as sweet and sticky as it was as possible for them to be. Other popular Panda Pop flavours were Cherry Ade and Bright Green Cola. Even more singular blends could be concocted by mixing two or more flavours in a Panda Pops mixing bowl. Panda Cola achieved a sort of cult status and there is even a song, ‘ Warm Panda Cola’ . While among Panda aficionados there was even the spoof blend of Princess Diana Memorial flavour! The Blandford drink competed remarkably well against American giants Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Panda Pops date back to the 1960s when the Blandford brewer dropped the name of Sunparlor for its soft drink brands. Sunparlor had also been the name of a winning race horse owned by a member of the Woodhouse family. Cream soda was...
3 comments
Read more

Greyhound Inn

In the 1700s, the Greyhound Inn was one of the three great coaching inns of Blandford and was both stylish and substantial. The other two great inns were the Crown and the Red Lion. In fact, the Greyhound dates back to the early 1600s. This inn was a regular stopping point for horse drawn coaches travelling between London and the West of England. The Greyhound was destroyed in the 1731 Great Fire of Blandford. It was then rebuilt with an impressive Market Place facing frontage together with sizeable back buildings which included stables, a tap room, workshops and a brewery. The front part covered 3,150 sq ft and the back buildings a further 3,100 sq ft. In 1779, the Inn was advertising it had an excellent and much used billiard table. On Bonfire Night in 1805, the Greyhound Inn was one of the many stopping points to change his horses for Lieutenant John Richards Lapenotiere of the Royal Navy. He was taking the news of victory at the Battle of Trafalgar and of Horatio Nelson’s death to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dorset’s Fiona Richmond

Julia Rosamund Harrison was the daughter of the Reverend John Harrison of Toller Porcorum, near Bridport and Julia attended the local village school. As a 17 year-old she won the title of Dorset Youth Clubs Hostess of the Year. For the offspring of a Dorset clergyman,  her career was to go off in an unexpected direction. One of her first jobs was working as an air hostess and then as a nanny for the actress, Diane Cilento - the first wife of James Bond actor, Sean Connery. She then became a Bunny Club  croupier. Julia met the Soho club owner and magazine publisher Paul Raymond and embarking on a new career as an actress and glamour model she decided to use the alias, Fiona Richmond. As a sex-symbol of the times, she appeared in stage plays and magazines and had a talent for self promotion. Fiona Richmond was in the forefront of the sexual revolution in the 1970s and once rode naked Lady Godiva-like through the streets of Soho. She was fined twenty pounds. In 1976, a national n...
Post a Comment
Read more