Tweedsmuir Parish History.
The Talla Railway & Reservoir.
The Talla railway was laid from the Caledonian Railway station in Broughton to the site of the construction of the Talla Reservoir at Tweedsmuir. Construction commenced in 1895 and the railway was used to transport men and materials to the reservoir site. The main material was puddle clay for the dam iyself. The reservoir was formally opened on 28th September 1905. The railway was finally sold for scrap and was uplifted in 1912 despite efforts by the local populace led by the Minister the Rev. W.S. Crockett for the railway to be retained for public use.
There have been several articles about the railway, the most notable being that of the Stephenson Locomotive Society in October 1966 when Mr David Sterrick the station -master at Broughton was the guide and also that in The Scots Magazine of November 1974 when Mr Sterrick was again the guide but also includes an interview with Mr William Anderson of Glenveg. There are also now websites that cover this story. Hence I will concentrate on particularly interesting aspects of the railway at the Tweedsmuir end and the reservoir that have interested me and have not been covered elsewhere. The Reservoir site is noted by The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and is on their Canmore Archive as ID 122232. They hav also noted the Talla Railway itself as ID 276379.
One of the questions regarding the railway was how far it extended from Victoria Lodge along the north bank of the reservoir.
The map above of 1904 shows Victoria Lodge completed and the reservoir under construction and the railay extending the whole length of north side of the reservoir site to Talla Linn Foots. The reason for the extension of the line - must have been for the transportation of whinstone for the dam wall from the quarries in Gameshope. The quarries can still be seen in Gameshope with heaps of whinstone rocks, still in situ,that were not ultimately required. The railway would have also assisted in the removal of spoil from the digging out of the foot and sides of the site.
The rather faded image on the left of the Talla dam under construction c1900 from a Brown Series PC shows a short freight train on the railway extension along the north side of the reservoir. The locomotive depicted could well, by its size compared to the wagons, be the Hudswell Clark 0-4-4T - see page Pudddle Clay Trains.
The method of getting the stone from the quarries down the valley track to Talla Linn Foots is open to conjecture but my view is that horse drawn wooden sledges were used. This method was used by the local farmers for the transportation of peat. On completion of the actual dam and hence no further requirement for rocks the track of the extension would have been lifted and the track bed used for the route of the present road.
The railway must also have been extended into the actual reservoir site to facilitate the removal of the spoil resulting from the digging out of the sides and valley floor. This can be seen in the photograph of the steam digger in the Talla Reservoir Under Construction section of the Picture gallery - link at foot of page. The remnants of a small section of a railway line on the south bank of the reservoir can be found just to the south of the outfall from the Fruid system where erosion of the bank has revealed some sleepers and also evidence of ballast.
When the central core of the dam was completed a railway track was laid along the top for the delivery of the pitching stones for cladding the reservoir side of the embankment. Initially I thought that the only way that this section of track could have been connected to the main track would have been by means of a turntable situated in the area where the present day stilling pond is located. However there are photographs extant that have come to light showing that there was no turntable and that there was no direct connection. Material being transferred from wagons on the main line to wagons on the dam line by means of a large crane.
Just to the north of the Tweed bridge is a pile of large granite stones including two that are the shape of heraldic shields. The location of the stones beside the track of the railway would suggest that they had been unloaded from a train and just left there.
Picture left taken in 1998 showing the pile of stones with bridge in background.
Picture right showing closeup of the two heraldic shields.
For what purpose were these stones brought to Tweedsmuir? What is strange is that I have not found any reference to these enigmatic stones anywhere in the records apart from a reference to shields which were part of the decorations at Victoria Lodge at the opening ceremony of the reservoir in 1905. The location of the stones in the vicinity of the bridge could possibly indicate that they were originally had some connection with the bridge - were the square blocks spares for the bridge that had been imported with the main granite construction blocks that came predressed from Italy? But what of the heraldic shields? Another possibility is that the blocks and the shields were designed to form a memorial pillar to celebrate the achievement of the completion of the reservoir project but for some reason this final act of the project was never completed. One possible eason for this could be the exceedingly bad press the project received regarding the levels of drunkeness and the number of related industrial fatalities. However it could well have been a change of plan and it was decided to have the memorials at Victoria Lodge. A marble plaque commemorating the completion of the railway was mounted at the front door of Victoria Lodge while a fine bronze memorial plaque commemorating the completion of the complete project in September 1905 is mounted above the fireplace in what was the board room at Victoria Lodge.
It is unlikely that the stones were always at this location. It is known that there was an interim opening ceremony at the northern abutment of the bridge when the bridge was completed and it is unlikely that an untidy pile of stones would be evident during such a proud ceremony. Hence it is probable that the stones were kept at a depot and transferred to the bridge site at the end of the project. Maybe even the last train to run from Talla dropped off the stones on this last journey.
The Talla Reservoir is completely surrounded by a typically Victorian elegant metal fence about three feet high. What is not elegant and again a tad over-engineered are the stock-gates where the fence crosses an inlet burn. These gates comprise of a substantial RSJ supported on two sections of 6 inch iron pipe embedded in concrete. The heavy metal gate is hung from the RSJ. The photographs have been taken when the burns are very low - after heavy rain these burns can be raging torrents probably even more so prior to afforestation. The reasons for the enclosure of the reservoir and hence the stock-gates must be the same as the reasons for the sheep crossings on the railway ie due to the large flocks of sheep in the area. The lower image shows fence/stock gate over the Glencutho Burn - upper right corner. In the foreground of this magical scene can be seen the rail supports for what was a footbridge. This was part of a walkway along the complete length of the south side of the reservoir that was provided for the maintenance men to "walk the reservoir"
The image left shows the "signature" stock gate at Talla Brig a bridge over the Talla Water located approximately halfway between the actual dam spill-way and the confluence of the Talla Water with the River Tweed.
As part of the expansion of the Talla Reservoir project was the construction of pipeline/tunnel from the Fingland burn to Talla via Hawkshaws burn, Fruid reservoir, Menzion burn. There was a pipeline from a weir on the Fingland burn to a weir on the Hawkshaw burn to the Fruid reservoir with a tunnel from Fruid to the Talla reservoir via a weir on the Menzion burn.
The first stage of this project the tunnel from Fruid to Talla was completed in 1952. A plaque at the tunnel outfall at the Talla reservoir commemorates this event.
To accomodate the large numbers of workers involved in the project - railway/aquaduct/reservoir - temporary "Huts" were erected at the dam site and also a small one at the Crook Inn. Some of the men had wives and families. By the 1901 Census there were 4 very large huts housing between forty and sixty souls each and eight smaller huts housing less than ten.
Small-Pox Outbreak 1902/1903
There was a National epidemic of small-pox during 1902/1903 and the outbreak in Scotland was traced to Talla. The following from the British Medical Journal for December 1903 -
Small-pox at the Edinburgh Waterworks.
Since the outbreak of small-pox at the Talla waterworks in Peebles-shire on November 9th the disease has been steadily spreading and cases have been reported in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Lanark, Airdrie and Sanquar. The infection is believed to have been brought from the Talla centre. Ten cases have come under notice at the Talla waterworks within the last month although precautions have been taken by the sanitary and public health authorities of the county. We understand that three fresh cases were discovered in the late days of the week ending December 12th, and these have been placed in a temporary hospital. Six patients have been removed to the hospital, where one has died. There are now two cases in the small-pox hospital in Edinburgh, and both of these appear to have been traced to the Talla centre.
The temporary hospital mentioned in the BMJ report I presume was at the Talla dam site which the BMJ referred to as the Talla centre.
Other associated items:-
More Pictures -
Talla Reservoir under Construction Gallery.