The Brinore Tramroad

Before locomotives, and in many places for decades after them, bulk goods in industrial Britain moved on horse-drawn railways: iron rails or plates laid on stone blocks, with a horse pulling a train of wagons.

The Brinore Tramroad is one of the better preserved and it is walkable end to end.

What it did

It opened in 1815, running about eight miles from the canal wharf at Talybont-on-Usk, up the side of the valley and over the hill to Trefil, at the head of the valleys.

Limestone and coal came north over the top. Limestone went two ways: down to the kilns and out by canal for agricultural lime, and south to the ironworks at Rhymney and Tredegar as flux. Coal came the other way for burning the lime.

Loaded wagons ran down under gravity with a brakesman; horses hauled the empties back up.

Why it matters

Tramroads like this are among the earliest railways in the world in any meaningful sense. They predate the locomotive, they established the gauge conventions and much of the civil engineering practice that the main-line railways inherited, and there were hundreds of miles of them in south Wales before Stephenson built anything.

They also explain the industrial geography. An ironworks needed iron ore, coal and limestone in one place, and where nature had not obliged, tramroads did the moving. The blast furnaces of the south Wales valleys were fed by limestone quarried on the northern escarpment and brought over the top on lines exactly like this one.

What to see

Stone sleeper blocks. The rails were fixed to individual stone blocks rather than to timber sleepers, because timber rotted and stone was to hand. The blocks survive in numbers along the route, each with two drilled holes for the iron spike and plug that held the rail chair. Once you know what you are looking at you will see them everywhere.

The formation. A level or gently graded shelf cut along the hillside, unmistakable once you have followed it for a few hundred metres.

Inclines, bridges, culverts and retaining walls.

The wharf at Talybont, where the tramroad met the canal, with lime kilns alongside.

Walking it

The route is a public path for most of its length and it is signed. It climbs steadily from Talybont at around 130 metres to over 500 at the top, so it is a proper day's walk with a long descent or a return.

It links at the top to the Trefil quarries and to the network of other tramroads across the northern escarpment.

The Taff Trail follows part of it, so the Talybont end is busy with cyclists.

Nearby

The Llangattock tramroad and inclines above Crickhowell are the same system a few miles east, and the lime kilns at Llangattock wharf are the best in the valley.