The inclined plane had been talked about for a long time. But continued postponement increased the cost of what was a major engineering project. Mining historian and chairman of Newcastle Civic Society, Jim Worgan, has studied the options faced by the shareholders.

“The canal from Stoke to Newcastle was hampered immediately by Gresley’s monopolising conditions on the price of coal carriage,” Jim says. “Trading was generally poor except for the transport of coal to and from Gresley’s own coal wharf in Liverpool Road. The other wharf, belonging to the Stoke Canal at Stubbs Field, was hardly used at all. To remedy this, the shareholders brought the inclined plane project back onto the agenda to provide cost-effective means of conveyance up the hill through Occupation Street. In 1831 the frustrated shareholders called upon the engineering whiz kid of the day, none other than the railway genius George Stephenson.”

Stephenson was a Geordie born in 1781 to parents who were both illiterate. As a consequence he received sparse education eventually paying for night classes when he was 17 from his earnings at a local colliery. After marriage he supplemented the household income by making shoes and mending clocks. By the time the new owner of the Apedale mines, Richard Edensor Heathcote, somewhat half-heartedly invited him to sort out the Newcastle Junction Canal, George Stephenson had invented Rocket, the fastest train on earth, and had established the world’s first commercial railway between Stockton and Darlington which pioneered rail travel as we know it today.

Jim continues. “In 1832 Stephenson presented his designs for the construction of an inclined plane from the basin at Brook Lane to Stubbs Fields. The starting cost was £2,206. Despite this reasonable sum (about £1.5 million today) the shareholders had difficulty in persuading Heathcote to lease the Junction Canal to liberate funds to build Stephenson’s project. Heathcote eventually turned his back on it; after all his investments were already safe – the great iron and coal master wasn’t particularly bothered about linking with Stoke. Beside the industrial world was opening-up to railways and he could see superior benefits.”

In fact by 1846 a new rail line had been laid-out from Stoke to Silverdale through Newcastle. The Stephenson’s inclined plane on the Junction Canal was no more than a half-remembered dream.

 “Most of the canal bed was used for rail track,” says Jim. “Of course that’s now gone as well. But you can follow the line quite easily from Marsh Parade and Water Street, across King Street by the Borough Arms, along a greenway and under Queen Street into West Brampton. From here the railway travelled through a tunnel under Liverpool Road to Knutton and Silverdale. The Junction Canal however took a different route from West Brampton.”

Newcastle railway station - situated off King street
30 May 1964
Newcastle railway station was situated off King street, across from the Borough Arms Hotel, as this photograph clearly shows.

Jim offers to walk me along what’s left of the bed of the Junction Canal. The start point is Hempstalls Lane.

“This area was once occupied by the grounds of Rye Bank House,” he points out, “An early home of the Caddick family and built alongside the railway in 1847. Nearby were the Brampton Sidings which still carry the name today.”

Jim and I walk along a dead-straight stretch now called Croft Road, through a modern housing estate via Honeywood and into a row called Brackenberry all of which stand on the canal bed.

“We are now walking parallel to St Michael’s Road Cross Heath,” says Jim. “From this point the Junction Canal passed under Liverpool Road where it connected with the Gresley Canal near Swift House. As for the actual connection – it’s been long buried by modern industry and transportation.”