IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Gosport Lane, BANBURY, OX17 1EG

The footpath leaves the B4086 and heads uphill towards the wood.

This shows the northern end of the Edgehill escarpment at Knowle End which is the prominent wooded hill. The trees to the immediate left of the white house mark the line of the Edgehill Light Railway (EHLR) which ran up to the top of the hill via a rope powered 1 in 6 incline at that point. The railway was built to remove ironstone from quarries on the hill top but the project was a financial failure. The operation probably worked properly for only a few months (if at all) in the summer of 1922. In October of that year there was a fatal accident on the worked incline and the line was never repaired. Part of the lower section of the line was taken over by the MOD during the war. Most of the lower section of the line has been obliterated by Kineton munitions depot and the line of the railway can only clearly be seen in this area. Most of the track that remained and its locos and equipment were scrapped immediately after World War two and the company was wound up in 1957.

This embankment is close to the point at which the line crossed the road to Radway and is still shown on modern OS maps. This three mile long standard gauge line was built for the Oxfordshire Ironstone Company in 1920 and ran from a junction with the Stratford-on-Avon & Midland Junction Railway at Burton Dassett to ironstone mines at Edge Hill around Image It was only operated for five years before the iron ores ran out and the line was closed. The railway and its rolling stock lay derelict for another 22 years before it was dismantled. The 1940s map still shows the line as being in existence. See also http://www.hfstephens-museum.org.uk/pages/his_railways/edgehill.htm

The trees mark the route of the Edge Hill Light Railway inclined plane. This was a rope-worked incline used to take wagons up and down from ironstone quarries at the top of Edge Hill to Burton Dassett sidings on the Stratford & Midland Junction Railway. The line closed almost as soon as it was opened in the 1920's due to the changes in ironstone mining after WW1. It lay dormant in a timewarp until it was dismantled in 1946.