Waiting on the Autumn Rains

One coastal stretch of National Trust land lies on the cliffs north of Runswick Bay, and below it, tangled up in bramble and blackthorn, lie the bones of a Victorian ironworks. The Victoria Ironstone Company had no road in, only the sea, and in 1856 they built a mine, a works and a harbour anyway. Two years and a mere 100 tons of iron later, a landslip finished the job the sea never got round to. A few half-hearted attempts followed, but by 1869 the whole enterprise was under the hammer at auction.

Up on the clifftop, two small reservoirs had been dug to keep the ironworks supplied with water¹East reservoir, Victoria ironworks, Port Mulgrave & Runswick Bay. https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA144045²West reservoir, Victoria Iron works, Port Mulgrave & Runswick Bay. https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA144359. The western one gave up the ghost long ago and dried out completely. The eastern one held on grimly until this year, when the dry summer finally did for it too. With the water gone, the Trust seized the chance to clear out the silt and overhanging shade, all in the name of a healthier pond ecosystem.

That was the story behind our Thursday’s volunteer task. Muddy, whiffy, but thoroughly satisfying work. The usual haul of bottles and plastic turned up, along with a dog’s fetch toy and a heavy cast-iron lump shaped rather like an acorn, about eight inches tall. Our best guess was a finial, once perched on a gatepost. It set me wondering whether the reservoirs had originally been ringed with ornate Victorian railings, all curls and spikes, and one lot in that auction.

One puzzle remains unsolved. There is no visible inlet feeding the reservoirs, which seems an odd way to build a reservoir. The surrounding fields hardly offer much of a catchment either. So for now we wait, hoping the autumn rains do the decent thing and top the pond back up.

• 1
  East reservoir, Victoria ironworks, Port Mulgrave & Runswick Bay. https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA144045 ↩︎
• 2
  West reservoir, Victoria Iron works, Port Mulgrave & Runswick Bay. https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA144359 ↩︎