Charles Richardson, Sapperton, and Charles Dickens
A GWR Pilgrimage
Brunel diary entry Boxing Day 1835 about the Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway:
‘… it’s an awkward line and the estimate’s too low …’
Charles Richardson became Brunel’s resident engineer on the line between Cheltenham and Swindon and he oversaw the construction of the two tunnels at Sapperton. He was an avid reader then of Charles Dickens’ first novel The Pickwick Papers whilst staying in Oaksey and Chalford. No doubt, later in life, he would have also have avidly read The Signalman by Charles Dickens too. Perhaps his knowledge and experience of tragedy on the line, allied to that later book, led to his conviction that a person on a railway line could become mesmerised by the sight of an approaching train …
Have you ever read that haunting short story The Signalman? A spectre materializes at a tunnel entrance; a telegraph bell rings in the signal box, heard only by the signalman, not by the narrator and observer: disaster subsequently occurs. It’s a lonely, sombre, sunless spot at this tunnel at the signal box. A bit like Sapperton in Richardson’s time perhaps.
Working Instructions Sapperton 1894
‘When an up passenger is assisted from Brimscombe to Sapperton the information must be sent from Brimscombe to Frampton Crossing and Sapperton Tunnel signal boxes on the single needle telegraph.’
Sapperton Sidings Signal Box controlled lines for goods trains, and the Brimscombe bank engines (needed to assist trains up the steep incline from Chalford). There are two tunnels at Sapperton: the Short Tunnel (352 yards) and the Long Tunnel (1,864 yards). Brunel originally envisaged a single curved tunnel at a lower level than the eventual construction. That would have meant a lower incline and no need for 19th century banking engines. The bore holes for that ghost tunnel lie hidden deep deep down …
I have walked out to the places where Richardson stayed with copies of The Pickwick Papers and The Signalman in my pocket on a railway pilgrimage, together with this letter from by brother-in-law, Rod:
‘On my train journeys to Stroud over the years, I’ve always been intrigued by the bridge which crosses the line at a very steep angle soon after Sapperton Tunnel … It was designed by Charles Richardson to enable timber from Westley Wood to be taken down to the Thames & Severn Canal and is quite narrow. Brunel was so impressed with it, he wanted it left without parapets … Richardson lived in Bristol … You might want to visit Clifton where a green plaque at 10 Berkeley Square acknowledges his part in building the Severn Tunnel. He is buried in Almondsbury Churchyard … Richardson – a major figure in the railway through the Stroud Valley and beyond.’
Now there’s another pilgrimage to think about: another GWR pilgrimage.