‘THORNBURY’S’ TENDER TRAP
I was intrigued by the article and interview with Craig Stinchcombe in the last issue and the puzzle of Thornbury Castle’s Hawksworth tender.
I have scoured many of my books to see if I could crack the puzzle concerning the date of the photograph. Keith Langston, in his book on the ‘Castles’, details that the engine was coupled to a Hawksworth tender from its entry into service on August 26 1949 until March 27 1954, when it received a Collett tender for just 52 days, before it was reunited with a Hawksworth tender.
According to the records, it kept this tender until September 13 1955 when it swapped again, back to a Collett 4,000-gallon version. No further tender exchanges appear to be detailed for the rest of its life.
In June 1958 and April 1959 photographs in my collection reveal that No. 7027 still retained a Collett tender. However, I have also seen photographs dated September 1959 in which it is being piloted over the South Devon banks by ‘Large Prairie’ 2-6-2T No. 4117, and it has the Hawksworth tender, so an unrecorded change of tender took place at some time between April and September 1959.
On February 25 1960, Thornbury Castle went into Swindon Works for its last heavy general overhaul. When it emerged on April 25 1960, it was reallocated to 85A Worcester. The next dated photograph that I have is September 1960, when it’s once again coupled to a Collett tender, which I presume it acquired during its last overhaul. Therefore, it seems likely that Thornbury Castle only regained the Hawksworth tender for a maximum of ten months at most, from May 1959 until February 1960.
Looking at the archive photograph published in the article, it is hard to ascertain for sure whether the shed code of Dumbleton Hall is 83B or 83D, as the pixellation of the photo under magnification makes it ambiguous. But as it moved from 83B (Taunton) to Newton Abbot (83D) in December 1958, and assuming that the shed code was promptly changed to 83D at the time, although not conclusive, I would think that this photograph is summer/ autumn 1959, and the location could most likely have been in Devon, possibly somewhere in Plymouth Laira.