Toil on the tramroad
The Brinore Tramroad fell out of use more than 150 years ago, yet evidence of the primitive railway still haunts this quiet valley in the heart of the Brecon Beacons, says
Brinore Tramroad, Powys
There was a time when a heady brew of soot and lime and the saccharine scent of fresh horse muck sat heavy in the air above the Caerfanell river in south Powys. Stone sleepers grumbled beneath load-bearing carts, hooves clapped on September mud, and crows – spooked by the hollers of rail workers – blew free from aged oaks, setting wing across the vale towards the floodplains of the Usk.
Responsible for all this industrial clamour was the eight-mile-long Brinore Tramroad, built in 1815 to carry limestone south from Trefil Quarry to the Rhymney Valley ironworks, and iron and coal north to Talybont-on-Usk. The latter, loaded on to the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, then continued its journey by barge to the profitable markets of Brecon.
LIFE OF A RAIL WORKER
There are few records of what life was like on the tramroad, but it would have been tough for both human and beast.
The wrought-iron carts, fully loaded, weighed over two tonnes each, and it was the job of the horse to keep the road moving. These equine engines had the strength to pull a loaded tram on the flat and an empty one uphill, lugging not only coal and limestone but wood and possibly even coffins from rural properties en route.
One report by the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children (1842) stated that “Hannah Jenkins (aged 21) works by the ton, and gets seven or eight shillings for herself and five shillings for her helper (aged 16). They work about 12 hours a day; they begin from six to eight o’clock in the morning, and leave off about six or eight o’clock in the evening.”
CAERFANELL CIRCULAR
The tramroad functioned with little change until 1852, at which point Trefil Quarry was abandoned. Traffic began to fall and, despite reducing the tonnage rates in an attempt to reverse the decline, Brinore closed in the mid-1860s.
The stone-block sleepers that lay beneath the cast-iron rails can still be seen on the track today, half buried in mud and leaf litter. You can walk or cycle the old tramway from Talybont-on-Usk all the way to the Rhymney Valley. Alternatively, for a two-mile circular walk, park at Talybonton-Usk (serviced by the X43, Brecon to Abergavenny bus) and follow the track for about half a mile. Leave the tramroad to the right on a footpath just before Aber hamlet, cross the Caerfanell River, then return on its west bank to the village.