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Acquiring land for the Railway...
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The "West Somerset Railway" Act of Parliament of 1857 authorised the building of a Railway from a Junction with the Bristol and Exeter Railway, two miles to the west of Taunton, to Watchet, a harbour town on the Bristol Channel. The Act empowered the Company to purchase the necessary lands through which the Railway was to pass.
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One typical area was that around Dene Court just south of Bishops Lydeard, where the road to Cotford (was Tone Vale) crosses the Railway. Then called "Dene House" the property and adjoining lands were acquired on 9 June 1856 by a certain Richard Snow, Gentleman from Thomas Joyce, Gentleman, John White, Gentleman, James Blackmore, George Day, Yeoman, and Richard Greenslade, Auctioneer.
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This event occured about one month before the first public meeting at Willition on 9 July, where Sir Peregrine Acland first proposed a Railway to Watchet. The purchase could hardly have been spectulative, since the choice of route was unknown at the time.
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In due course, the Railway's local solicitor Mr Rowcliffe of Stogumber opened negotiations with Mr Snow, for parts of parcels 28,29,32,36,37,38,39 and 40 as shown on the Railway's Parliamentary Plan, totalling around two acres, two roods and twenty six perches.
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The land was in use by Mr Snow and various occupiers - Edward Godwin, Edwin Toose, I.Bailey and Thomas Challice. As the map shows, the land required for the Railway, and approach roads to the proposed bridge, cut a swath across the existing pattern of parcels of land causing problems of access to those severed remnants. The map also shows how the final course of the single line of railway and works strayed from the first survey, yet still within the authorised "limits of deviation" - interestingly moved away from the House and maybe to appease the landowner?
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Yet despite this, it appears that Mr Snow was to dig in his heels and hold out for a price beyond the Railway's initial offer. On 16 April 1861, the two parties agreed to appoint an arbitrator, James Beadel, Land Surveyor, to resolve the impasse under the "Land Clauses Consolidation Act".
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On 3 July 1861, James Beadel determined that the Railway Company pay £391 for the absolute purchase of the freehold and copyhold land and also pay £629 10s as compensation for the severing of Mr Snow's lands. The freehold land accounted for £360 of the absolute purchase.
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The slope of the embankment leading to the overbridge were planted by Richard Snow with a thorn hedge and ornamental shrubs (these have matured and may still be seen) but the Company reserved the right to enter upon the slopes to maintain or repair the earthworks, overbridge and the culvert carrying the Ash Priors stream.
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These protracted negotiations were finally concluded with the signing of the Conveyance on 22 January 1863 - nine months after the Railway opened for traffic. At some £1100 for a quarter of mile of railway it is little wonder that the Company had to increase its capital by half as much again to £180,634 13s 8d to build the line.
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Gleaned from a copy of the original Conveyance between Mr Snow and the West Somerset Railway Company, courtesy of Mr Fred Clarke of Dene Court, Bishops Lydeard, Somerset
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The Minehead Branch 1848-1971
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For serious students of railway history; for local history and local geography enthusiasts and for anyone interested in the story of how a railway came to change rural West Somerset, there is no better recommendation than Ian Coleby's excellent volume "The Minehead Branch 1848-1971" published by Lightmoor Press in 2006. Ian is the Archivist of the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust and the Curator of the Gauge Museum at Bishops Lydeard.
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