{"id":643,"date":"2018-11-17T17:37:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T17:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/?p=643"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:37:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:37:25","slug":"solway-viaduct-port-carlisle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/17\/solway-viaduct-port-carlisle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Solway viaduct – a bridge too much for Port Carlisle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Solway viaduct was an amazing concept \u00a0\u2013 it was also the final nail in the coffin of Port Carlisle as a working port.<\/p>\n

The following is an extract from my book, Port Carlisle, a history built on hope<\/i>. You can read more about it in this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And you can buy in on Amazon here\u00a0<\/a>(search for it on Amazon if you are outside the UK).<\/p>\n

Cut off entirely, by the Solway viaduct<\/b><\/h1>\n

What the Port Carlisle Railway had that others wanted was access to Carlisle, and a city station.<\/p>\n

What no one much was interested in by the time the railway opened in 1854 was access to the Port.<\/p>\n

As the money men and developers of both the canal and the railway had always been city manufacturers and city politicians, their loyalty to Port Carlisle was pretty thin.<\/p>\n

They needed access to\/from the sea: where was a matter of practicality and cost \u2013 after all, it was only for those reasons that an otherwise obscure spot called Fisher\u2019s Cross had been chosen in the first place.<\/p>\n

Once the manufacturers decided to focus on Silloth, they lost interest in and neglected Port Carlisle.<\/p>\n

\"solway
The line ran along the top of this embankment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Had nothing else happened to further damage the Port, it\u2019s unlikely history would have been any different. The harbour had a sand problem it would have taken great expense to\u00a0 <\/span>resolve. Which made Silloth look a better bet. The harbour was tidal, which also made Silloth look a better bet.<\/p>\n

So perhaps in the overall scheme of things, the Solway viaduct didn\u2019t make a great deal of difference.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t to say it did no harm.<\/p>\n

But first, a little rewind<\/b><\/h2>\n

The idea of viaduct wasn\u2019t entirely new. Someone came up with the idea of a bridge from Bowness to Annan in 1830, in an anonymous pamphlet, Remarks on the Utility and Practicability of the Formation of a Rail Road between Whitehaven and Carlisle<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It was met with scorn. The Cumberland Pacquet and Ware\u2019s Advertiser<\/em> called the idea ‘sublime, utopian, stupendous and bordering on certain of the Munchausen achievements’. Likening it to the idea of a bridge from Scotland to Ireland, the paper suggested the engineer move it down to the Robin Rigg sandbank, so vessels running aground there could shelter beneath it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And in 1836, the idea popped up again, under the pointed headline: \u2018Another railway from Preston to Glasgow!\u2019 The Kendal Mercury<\/em> this time reported on (another) plan to build a \u00a33million railway between those two places, saying it deserved praise for boldness, if not for feasibility. It would include a ten-mile \u2018embankment\u2019 over Morecambe Bay, and a viaduct over the Solway from Port Carlisle.<\/p>\n

The paper assured readers that it wasn\u2019t hoaxing them, calling it \u2018one of the wildest speculations of the present speculation period\u2019.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • If you want to read more, you will have to buy the book \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Solway viaduct was an amazing concept \u00a0\u2013 it was also the final nail in the coffin of Port Carlisle as a working port. The following is an extract from my book, Port Carlisle, a history built on hope. You can read more about it in this post. And you can buy in on Amazon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cumbria-history","tag-port-carlisle"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Solway viaduct - a bridge too much for Port Carlisle - Cumbrian Characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Solway viaduct was an amazing concept \u00a0\u2013 it also doomed Port Carlisle as a working port. 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