|
|
|
|
GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line
Tyseley Station: gwrt3877
A painting of the Webster & Horsfall wire works in rural
Hay Mills in 1856, with a short train on the Great Western (Birmingham and
Oxford Junction) Railway in the background. In 1856 Hay Mills was open farmland
and the only other works in the district was a tannery. At that time the
nearest urban area was Yardley some three miles distant and served by Acocks
Green & South Yardley station which had opened on 30th September 1852. The
train is where Tyseley railway station was built fifty years later (opened on
1st October 1906) and the land on the other side of the track became Tyseley
locomotive depot and carriage sidings.
In 1847 the Great Western Railway paid James Horsfall
£2,300 for his factory in Oxford Street, Digbeth, as it stood under their
proposed Bordesley Viaduct. It was stated that the sum includes
compensation for goodwill, loss of trade, removal, improvements made in
machinery and fixtures and for every description of injury whether permanent or
temporary which the formation of the said Railway may occasion. The
compensation was sufficient for James Horsfall to re-establish his wire works
on a new site beside the River Cole at Hay Mills. Subsequently his company
amalgamated with another prominent Birmingham steel wire manufacturer owned by
Baron Webster of Penn on 1st July 1855. Forty years later Webster &
Horsfall joined forces with Larch & Batchelor to become the most prominent
manufacturer of wire ropes in the world.
Robert Ferris
back
|
|
|