A ruined, overgrown brick and concrete structure in a recently cleared area of woodland. The structure is the ‘kip’ of a narrow-gauge railway.

Newton Wood’s Hidden Industrial Heritage

This morning’s low cloud cover meant there was no chance of capturing any stunning shots of the Cleveland Hills, so I turned my attention to something closer to the ground.

Folk often ask me about this brick and concrete structure at the Cliff Rigg end of Newton Wood, recently cleared of bracken and brambles by the National Trust Rangers and volunteers. Clearing the area is important for preserving this bit of industrial history. Without all the undergrowth, the structure’s shape stands out. It’s the head of a narrow-gauge tramway incline. Wagons full of ore from the Roseberry Ironstone Mine would roll down this incline by gravity to the North Eastern Railway sidings, where the ore was loaded into standard gauge wagons for transport to the Teesside furnaces.

The system worked with a steel rope wound around a drum at the top, which linked six full wagons with six empties. The drum controlled the speed. When the empty wagons reached the top, they were guided over this ‘kip’ into sidings in a cutting known as a ‘dish,’ to stop them from rolling back while they were uncoupled. The incline itself had a gradient of about one in five and stretched 350 metres.

You can still see the remains of the sandstone drum house, about thirty metres away from the incline head, sitting at a higher level. A stationary steam engine at the mine entrance off Aireyholme Lane used to haul the empty wagons up a gentler incline across the fields, while the full ones trundled back down under gravity.

The tramway ran from 1907 to 1931, though the mine had shut down by 1926.


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