Description:In March 1815 the Marquis of Stafford’s Chief Estate Agent James Loch wrote to estate agent Mr. Fenton about a 'projected railway' at Lane End. Loch asked Fenton to investigate the proposal, especially 'any attempt to carry it to join the railway in existence by any course other than through Lord Stafford's Millfield Gate Farm'.
Before writing to Fenton on 7th March 1815, Loch had visited Lane End himself ‘to endeavour to learn the truth of the story respecting the projected railway’. In the letter shown above Loch informs Fenton that he had discovered that the projected railway was initiated by ‘the Pickfords’ who had ‘taken some stone quarries in the neighbourhood of Ipstone’.
The Pickfords Loch refers to are the Pickford family who had owned stone quarries and transported goods and people around the country since 1695. Loch explains the motivations behind their decision to construct a railway, explaining that ‘their carriage of the stone to London’ was ‘precarious’ using the Leek Canal which was ‘often dry in Summer and soon frozen in Winter’. Owing to the inadequacy of the canal for the transport of trade, the Pickfords intended to construct a railway at Lane End which, Loch notes ‘all the landowners’ were ‘in favour’ of.
The motivation behind the construction of the railway at Lane End reflects growing dissatisfaction with transporting goods by canal. The high charges implemented by canal proprietors and the dependency of the canals on weather influenced the development of railway networks which could offer greater speed and economy. Loch’s letter to Fenton reflects contemporary concerns about inland transportation in the early nineteenth century and foreshadows the struggle between canal proprietors and railway promoters which would arise later in the 1820s.
For contextual information on the role of James Loch and the Leveson-Gower family in the canal and railway debate, see Professor Eric Richards The Leviathan of Wealth: The Sutherland Fortune in the Industrial Revolution (Routledge, 1973).
Contextual information about the Pickfords courtesy of 'The History of Pickfords' on http://www.pickfords.co.uk/ the Pickfords Moving and Storage Website.