Description:In October 1847 controversy arose between the North Staffordshire Railway Company and George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (1786-1861), the second Duke of Sutherland. The dispute concerned the commencement of work on the Duke’s Wall Grange Estate in Leek for the construction of the Churnet Valley Railway.
The letter above was written by Liddle Elliot, a surveyor employed by the Duke, on 19th October 1847. Elliot wrote to the Duke's Estate Agent Mr. Fenton to inform him that he had been walking ‘along the Line of the Churnet Valley Railway’ in Wall Grange and found the contractor had ‘actually begun’ work in the area.
Elliot writes that the work on the Duke’s land by the River was ‘severing a portion of the Estate'. Acting on behalf of the Duke’s Agent Mr. Steward, Elliot was responsible for ensuring that the Duke’s interests ‘did not suffer by any act of the Railway Company’. He wrote to the Duke’s agent Mr. Fenton for ‘instructions as to proper notice being given the contractor to desist from further operations’.
Elliot warns Fenton that unless ‘immediate steps’ were taken to stop the Contractor ‘the Boundary of the River’ would be ‘obliterated’.