Danzey for Tanworth Station

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

The station was opened in 1908 and being close to Danzey Green and Tanworth-in-Arden was named accordingly. Whilst the station's passenger facilities were very modest in keeping with many others on the line it did however boast a goods yard from the outset. The passenger buildings on the two platforms and the weighbridge located in the goods yard, were, in common with other stations on the line, constructed from asbestos (Eternit) sheeting fixed to timber framing. The station was approached via a short driveway off Danzey Green Lane, the latter also served the goods yard but from a separate entrance on the other side of the line. The goods yard was effectively one long siding with a corrugated goods shed and two small huts. Like all other goods yards along the route Danzey for Tanworth's goods yard was a casualty of the rising domination of road traffic and closed in 1964. The station remains open today as an unmanned halt.

Much of the information on this and other pages of Warwickshire Railways is derived from articles or books listed in our 'bibliography'.

Danzey for Tanworth Station in 1908

Ref: gwrdt451 Lens of Sutton Looking to Stratford upon Avon and Danzey Green Lane road bridge shortly after the opening of the station

Ref: gwrdt451a Lens of Sutton Close up of the down platform and its simple waiting room located at the bottom of the footbridge steps

Ref: gwrdt451b Lens of Sutton Close up of the up platform building which housed the general and ladies waiting rooms, booking office etc

Ref: gwrdt2824 J Alsop Looking towards Birmingham and the signal box shortly after the station was opened in 1908

Ref: gwrdt2824a J Alsop Close up of the Birmingham end of the station with the crossover leading to the goods yard on the left

Ref: gwrdt2838 J Alsop An elevated view of Danzey for Tanworth station which illustrates the rural location of the station when first built

Danzey for Tanworth Station under ownership of British Railways

Ref: gwrdt453 Lens of Sutton Looking towards Birmingham and a British Railways' DMU stop sign from beneath the passenger footbridge

Ref: gwrdt661 Lens of Sutton An elevated view of the station's up platform which accommodated the main station passenger facilities

Ref: gwrdt662 Lens of Sutton The station's main passenger facilities comprising the general and ladies waiting rooms and booking office

Ref: gwrdt2825 Lens of Sutton An early 1970s view of the station's main structure showing all to clearly the years of neglect by BR

Ref: gwrdt2836 Geoff7918 An elevated view of the original station building formed by utilising prefabricated modular units

Ref: gwrdt2833 Geoff7918 The front elevation of the up platform's main building as seen from the road entrance to the station

Ref: gwrdt658 Lens of Sutton Looking to Birmingham along the up platform with the new concrete passenger footbridge in the middle distance

Ref: gwrdt657 Lens of Sutton An elevated view looking to Birmingham and showing the goods yard on the left and the signal box on the right

Ref: gwrdt663 Lens of Sutton View from the up platform of the basic passenger facilities located on the down platform of the station

Ref: gwrdt2834 Geoff7918 The station's down platform waiting room showing not only signs of corporate neglect but some vandalism too

Ref: gwrdt1370 Anon View of the station's signal box located at the north end of the station on the down side opposite the goods yard

The Goods Yard

Ref: gwrdt657a Lens of Sutton Close up of the buffer stops, the storage facility on the platform and the goods shed in the station's goods yard

Ref: gwrdt657b Lens of Sutton Close up of the station's signal box, the passing loop and the turnouts at either end for accessing the goods yard

Ref: gwrdt1571 C Judge A winter photograph of the weighbridge office and road-plate in Danzey for Tanworth station's goods yard

Miscellaneous

Ref: gwrdt1372 M Mensing Ex-GWR 2-6-0 No 5370 on a down freight plodding up the 1 in 150 gradient towards Danzey for Tanworth station

Ref: gwrdt452 P Hopkins GWR 4-6-0 Saint class No 2903 'Lady of Lyons' is seen at the head of an up express service from the West Country

Ref: gwrdt2839 TJ Edginton Ex-GWR 2-6-2T No 6139 leaves Danzey station with the Moor Street to Henley-in-Arden local passenger service

Ref: gwrdt2835 Geoff7918 The Tilley Lamp located on the concrete footbridge at Danzey for Tanworth station in the mid-1960s

Ref: gwrdt1371 Anon The underbridge built on the skew carrying the the North Warwickshire Railway over a minor road near the station

Ref: gwrdt2837 Anon A British Railways Western Region Totem Sign, coloured brown with cream lettering, displaying the station's name

Maps and schematic plans

Ref: gwrdt2826 GWR A GWR map showing footpaths and rights of way in relation to the Birmingham and North Warwickshire line

Ref: gwrdt2826a GWR Close up showing footpaths and rights of way in relation to the North Warwickshire line near Hockley Wood

Ref: gwrdt2826b GWR Close up showing footpaths and rights of way in relation to the North Warwickshire line near Rudhall's Reins

Ref: sign-diag-danzey Signalling Record Society A low resolution version of the Signalling Diagram for Danzey Signal Box produced courtesy of the SRS

Umberslade Hall and the bridge over its drive

According to Colin Maggs in his book Branch Lines of Warwickshire one of the bridges near Danzey was built of stone not the normal structure built in brick found elsewhere on the route. The bridge carried the railway over the drive to Umberslade Hall, and in order to secure the passage of the railway through this estate the drive had to be crossed by a bridge of three elliptical arches, built of stone in order to match the stone of the Hall.

Robert Ferris writes that the GWR Magazine of 1908 had the following article on the bridge. The bridges on the line are of the usual types, in blue brick, but the most expensive of all is, strangely enough, an accommodation bridge. It carried the railway over a disused drive leading towards a fine old house, built of local stone from quarries which have since been worked out and closed. When the line was proposed the stipulation was made that it should cross the drive on three elliptical arches of stone obtained from Derbyshire of colour to match the house. This affords little idea of the difficulties encountered in designing and building it. All arches which are segments of a circle on a line square to the abutments show an elliptical curve on the face when built on the skew, but this arch although built on the skew had to be elliptical on a line square to the abutments. In a skew bridge of which the span is anything considerable the voussoirs have to be laid as nearly possible square to the face line.

A ruled sheet of paper rolled obliquely over a ruler gives a good idea of the courses on a segmental skew arch. All these corners are curved lines, and the joints between the ends of the adjacent voussoirs themselves are curved. Even the joints of the voussoirs where cut by the skew face are curved. The curves are spirals or functions of spirals based on the circle and have all been investigated and reduced to rule. On an elliptical skew arch all this is changed, for the radius of the arch itself changes continually from a maximum at the crown to a minimum at the springing. The result is that the six faces of all stones of which the arch is built have each to be cut to a different curve, and each curve itself is constantly altering inch by inch.

Another result which costs much money is the amount of stone which must be cut to waste. This increases enormously as the curvature increases near the springing, so that in a long voussoir much more stone is cut to waste than used. An extended search has revealed no record of a masonry elliptical skew arch having previously been built. An attempt to design a suitable arch on a false ellipse had to be abandoned, because the abrupt changes of curvature were found unsightly. In flat elliptical arches, like those in question, the line of the centre of thrust passes out of the back of the arching before it reaches the springing, and meeting the trust of another arch, or the reaction of the abutment, gradually loses its horizontal component, and passes more or less vertically into the pier or abutment. In some skew segmental arches built in France this has been recognised in the design, and before reaching the springing the spiral courses have ceased and courses parallel to the springing line have taken their place.

This desirable feature has been adopted resulting in a great saving of cost and relief to the contractor compared with the original design, because the courses being straight and parallel have four plane faces, and the waste due the changing spiral course is altogether avoided in the places where it would be greatest. The parallel courses were built to a true ellipse, all difficulty in cutting to changing curves being avoided, because the one template serves for two whole courses in each arch.. Above the parallel courses the change in curvature of the ellipse is greatly reduced, and for this part of the arch an approximation of three circular arcs was calculated, which differs from a true ellipse by a very small fraction of an inch. The difficulties were thus greatly reduced, for the spiral courses became true spirals and were marked out as for segmental arches of two different radii, instead of to unknown constantly changing curves. Methods based on, but vastly more complicated than those used for segmental arches were followed.

On receiving the drawings Mr GB Sharples, the contractor's engineer, with great zeal devised methods of setting out and succeeded in having all the stones cut with utmost precision. Only one stone was wasted, and the joints are as nearly perfect as possible. This bridge is believed to be the only one of its kind in existence.

Ref: gwrdt2832 Anon The front elevation of Umberslade Hall built in the 17th century by Smith of Warwick for the Archer family

Ref: gwrdt2831 Anon View of the completed Umberslade bridge not long after the North Warwickshire line opened in 1908

Ref: gwrdt2829 Anon Umberslade bridge with the driveway closed off by a timber gate and with GWR & temporary wagons evident

Ref: gwrdt2822 Anon Another view of Umberslade bridge with the driveway closed off by a timber gate but with no GWR wagons

Ref: gwrdt2823 J Alsop The challenge of building such a complex structure, with three eliptical arches, can clearly be seen in this view

Ref: gwrdt2830 GWR Close up showing that GWR wagons were also deployed by the contractor in building the bridge

Ref: gwrdt1420 Anon An unidentified ex-GWR 2-6-2T engine runs bunker first over the bridge which carried the line over the drive

Ref: gwrdt2828 GWR Some of the precision cut stone blocks completed under the watchful eye of Mr Sharples, the engineer

Ref: gwrdt2827 GWR Two images of one of the elliptical arches of the bridge taken some 100 hundred years apart