{"id":874,"date":"2019-05-20T09:36:08","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T09:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetforyou.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=874"},"modified":"2019-05-16T11:36:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T11:36:36","slug":"the-importance-of-the-railway-plans-and-sections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2019\/05\/20\/the-importance-of-the-railway-plans-and-sections\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of the Railway Plans and Sections"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second of a series on the railway plans we hold at Dorset History Centre, Colin Divall<\/a>, emeritus professor of Railway Studies at the University of York, describes why the railway plans are such an important source of information.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Building railways meant land, and land meant property. By the 1830s, when mainline railways were first planned in Dorset, virtually all the county was already divided up into estates.\u00a0 Some were large like the Bankes’ 16,000 acres<\/a>, spread across much of east Dorset and Purbeck, while others, particularly in the west, were more modest. But large or small, landowners valued their property, and railways represented both an opportunity and a threat. For a hitherto remote and predominantly agricultural county, railways might open up profitable food markets in London and further afield. On the other hand, railways cut through estates, farms and fields, disrupting established work patterns and perhaps even spoiling the view from the great house!<\/p>\n

\"\"
D-BKL\/J\/C\/3\/236 – Corfe Castle and village, railway in foreground.\u00a0 \u00a9National Trust<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, every railway promoter was obliged to convince parliament that on balance the good outweighed the bad \u2013 at least from the point of view of the landed gentry and industrialists who sat in parliament.\u00a0 A statutory railway company was an unusual entity. \u00a0It had the legal power to buy the land it needed, which in a society firmly based on land ownership was a rare privilege indeed. Parliament therefore wanted to be sure that a railway was not only practical engineering but also likely to be commercially viable. And above all, it wanted to know whose land was going to be affected.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Q\/D\/P(M)\/R\/3\/47 – Dorchester and Bridport plan<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is where these diagrams come in. They detailed how a railway would cut through town and country, both in the horizontal plane (plans) and the vertical (sections). Every single plot of affected land had to be given, along with adjacent infrastructure like parish roads and turnpikes. Separate books of reference gave the owners and occupiers of each numbered plot. These plans and sections don’t cover the whole of Dorset, just the bands through which railways were promoted. But for those areas they provide us with the most comprehensive and generally accurate information we are ever likely to have about who owned what and where.<\/p>\n

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Q\/D\/P(M)\/R\/3\/47 – Dorchester and Bridport section<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

—<\/p>\n

This is part two of an eight part series of blogs on the work we are doing to conserve the railway plans.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Part 1: Getting the Records Back on Track<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second of a series on the railway plans we hold at Dorset History Centre, Colin Divall, emeritus professor of Railway Studies at the University of York, describes why the railway plans are such an important source of information. — Building railways meant land, and land meant property. By the 1830s, when mainline railways… Read more The Importance of the Railway Plans and Sections<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,31],"tags":[82,9,92],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}