MAKING TRACKS FOR CHELSWORTH

The Lost Railways of Rural Suffolk

My nephew, Stephen Mitchell, once built a splendid model of the lovely village of Chelsworth - it was on display at our History Show back in 1996 - but the final touch caused something of a stir. Over the top of the village, he put a six-lane motorway, to serve as a by-pass protecting us from the unwelcome passage of through traffic. But the cure seems rather worse than the disease, and we persuaded him not to keep this feature of the model, even for fun.

A hundred and fifty years ago, though, the first of several plans appeared which would have had an equally dramatic effect on the peace of the village. Plans in the Ipswich Record Office show that the route proposed by the Eastern Counties Railway Company in 1843 would have taken a track right through the heart of Chelsworth, cutting it in half.

The accompanying map showed that the line would have crossed the river Brett just to the south of the church and run right alongside the famous double-hump bridge at the centre of Chelsworth Street, immediately in front of the Peacock Inn. It would then have followed the course of the street opposite some of the finest medieval houses before running off to Nedging Mill south of Bildeston.

Nevertheless, unlike the situation in many villages, dividing the community in this brutal way could still have been accomplished without destroying many dwellings. The clearance of homes along the southern line of the street, together with the widening of the river and mill-stream, had already been achieved by Robert Pocklington in creating space for his new mansion and landscaped park in the late 1700s; but that is another story.

Today, though we react with horror to such a development, we can also see how this railway would have revolutionised transport in this area, and how the economics of farming would have been transformed. The plans were in any case not the first such. Several years earlier, a project had been put forward for a canal from Mistley through Chelsworth to Lavenham along the line of the Brett (the plan is in the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford), but the rough nature of the drawings suggests that it was not a serious proposition.

I have not found any report of the reasons for the withdrawal of the Eastern Counties plan. However, it was followed within a year by an identical proposal for a Bury St Edmunds-Colchester link - identical, that is, within the boundaries of this village, save for one interesting titbit of information of the kind that makes the hours of studying documents so worthwhile.

In Geoffrey Pocklington's book on Chelsworth (published privately in 1956, and now once again available), he speculated that the parish pound and stocks stood in front of the Grange, that fine and distinctive house that all visitors will know. However, in the written details that accompany the plans of 1843 and 1844 in an expansive and elegant script, there is one difference. In 1843, the pound and stocks are identified but not shown on the plan; in 1844, a marginal note reads "taken away and thrown into Lady Austin's Field 28" which field is clearly marked some three hundred yards East of the Grange.

Before passing on to the next, less intrusive, plans, it is worth noting another valuable feature of the material. Compared with the contemporary tithe map, the plans present a much superior picture of the layout of the village and pre-date the first Ordnance Survey publication by forty years. This is particularly helpful when establishing the site of lost buildings.

The next plans appeared soon enough. In 1846, the Eastern Union Railway produced a plan for a link to Hadleigh Junction, some five miles south and east of Chelsworth. This time, the chosen route would have taken the track to the North of the river, and also outside most of the dwellings - though only to the extent of some fifty yards. As later enquiries showed, this was still a bit too near for some influential landowners, though there is no evidence to show whether this was the reason why the plan was not carried through.

Nearly twenty years passed before the next suggestion, and this time the route was much more demanding. Instead of following the level course of the river, the plan was for the track to turn directly towards Hadleigh, tackling the sharply rising ground towards Chelsworth Common to the south of the village. (In fact, the line would have run right through the place where the present Chelsworth Hall stands; but that Victorian edifice was not built until the turn of the century).

No doubt the powerful Pocklington family had a lot to say about a scheme that would have taken a large slice out of their park, and like the earlier plans, the fate of the unsuccessful project has not been documented.

As the fervour went out of the Railway Era, there were only a few further attempts thereafter. In 1884, there was an abortive repeat of the plan for a railway from Felixstowe and Ipswich towards the Midlands which would have taken the 1846 route north of the village. Then in 1896 came the final, and probably the best, version of the projected railway.

The Long Melford-Hadleigh Light Railway, described as a "tramway", was put forward as a means of linking all the villages along this section of the Brett to form a channel for transporting farm produce to markets further afield. It was designed as a low-cost local service, rather than on the more ambitious lines of earlier schemes. Unlike them, too, we have extensive reports of the debate that followed the publication of the proposals.

Both the East Anglian Daily Times and the Suffolk Free Press carried lengthy accounts of the public inquiry. On March 7, 1900, the newspapers reported that most of the local population supported the plans, and perhaps more crucially that the major landowners were in favour. Indeed, the promoters included the Rev Sir William Hyde Parker, Sir Cuthbert Quilter MP, and Col Scudamore of Chelsworth Hall. Col Fred Pocklington was one of a few objectors, and was satisfied with an assurance that the line would be taken fifty yards further north of the village. The others received short shrift from the President of the inquiry.

The President in due course approved the scheme - and there the story ends. Presumably the project failed because investors could not be persuaded to put up the money necessary to finance the railway. In any event, no railway has ever been built through Chelsworth, and no Beeching axe has come afterwards to leave us with an empty track.

Just one niggling question remains in my mind. Just as I wonder where the Roman Road to Colchester crossed Chelsworth, and where the original Chelsworth Hall stood - I ask myself: where would any of these would-be entrepreneurs have built our station on their line ? Would the Peacock Inn have become the Station Hotel ? The plans say nothing on the subject ... perhaps most of them never meant to stop the trains here at all, but just to rattle through heedlessly.

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