MDE11484 - New Florence Mine Tramway (Monument)

Tramway built to provide a link between the Florence Mine and the Devon and Somerset Railway at North Molton. Course begins just to the south of North Lode. Line was mounted on a small embankment around 11 feet wide, revetted with stone. West of Brinsworthy Bridge, the line is clearly visible as an embankment running across the fields. Almost at the point where the stream joins the River Mole the tramway is joined by the branch from Crowbarn Mine (MDE11482). [1] The New Florence Mine Tramway was constructed to connect the New Florence Iron Mine (see MDE20058) with South Molton. It conveyed iron ore from the mine to the main railway line. Its overall length was some 5.5 kilometres (extending from SS 7460 3326 to SS 7300 2720).The current investigation, as part of RCHME's West Exmoor Project, only includes the extreme northern end of the tramway, from the New Florence Mine site to the Exmoor National Park boundary.The tramway best survives at its junction with the Crowbarn Mine Tramway (see MDE11482), where it is a sharply defined, flat topped embankment 0.9 metres high. North of Brinsworthy Bridge it has been disturbed and eroded in places by the erratic course of the unnamed stream. At several places it crosses and recrosses this stream, and here attempts have been made to confine the stream with short sections of roughly coursed walling. In addition, lengths of tram rails still in place have been used as the basis for a makeshift bridge to carry the tramway over the stream at SS 7493 3173. Further northeast up the valley the course of the tramway is impossible to follow in places. At SS 7527 3205 are the remains of a loading bay fronting the tramway and adjacent to other structures associated with the New Florence Iron Mine. In addition the Ordnance Survey 1st Edition 25 inch mapping of 1888 depicts several sidings leading off the main tramway; there is no field evidence for these. The main line continued for some 200 metres northeast of the centre of the complex, and ended alongside a massive spoil heap issuing from one on the principal adits (MDE21456). [2]