The Southampton and Dorchester Railway was an English railway company formed to join Southampton in Hampshire with Dorchester in Dorset, with hopes of forming part of a route from London to Exeter. It received parliamentary authority in 1845 and opened in 1847.
It was promoted by Charles Castleman of Wimborne Minster and became known as "Castleman's Corkscrew" because of the meandering route it followed.
Its route across the New Forest was determined by the requirements of the Commissioners of the Forest. West of Brockenhurst, it ran via Ringwood; at that time Bournemouth was not considered an important settlement and Poole was served by a branch to Lower Hamworthy, across a toll bridge from the town.
In the late 19th century, a shorter route, via Christchurch and Bournemouth, was built and the former main line between Lymington Junction and Hamworthy Junction was reduced to the status of a local branch line, finally closing in the 1960s. However the end sections, from Southampton to Lymington Junction and from Hamworthy Junction to Dorchester, remain operational and form part of the important South West Main Line.
Origins
The London and Southampton Railway had been promoted with the intention of enabling a connection between the docks at Southampton and the capital. Sensing the opportunity to serve a wider area of the south coast, that company changed its name to the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) in 1839, and the Southampton main line was opened by the LSWR on 11 May 1840.
The LSWR wished to expand its network towards Exeter, but had early on been frustrated by the success of the Great Western Railway (GWR) and its ally, the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) in extending into the region. Proposals were put forward as early as 1836,Williams, volume 1 page 54 but it was not until 1847 that the company connected Salisbury in to its network, and that was a branch from Bishopstoke (Eastleigh), giving a circuitous route from London.
Before that, in 1844, Charles Castleman, a solicitor prominent in Wimborne Minster, had independently proposed a westward line from Southampton via Ringwood to Dorchester, and possibly on via Bridport to Exeter from there. Many railway schemes had been improbable in conception and Castleman went to some trouble to ensure a practicable and worthwhile scheme; Captain William Moorsom, an experienced railway engineer, was appointed by Castleman's committee of "respected local persons" to survey a route.
Moorsom's route
He presented his report on 18 July 1844; his line would leave Southampton and run through Brockenhurst, Ringwood and Wimborne, then turning south to Poole and west again to Wareham and Dorchester. This alignment was far from direct, later earning the line the epithet "the Corkscrew", but Moorsom was confident that his line was cheaper and served more intermediate settlements than a direct line via the undeveloped heathlands around Poole. Interests in Weymouth were dismayed that the line was to end (for the time being) in Dorchester; they were anticipating the loss of Channel Islands packet traffic (post and the transport of official documents by sea) to Southampton. Moorsom said that the difficult terrain made an approach to Weymouth expensive; atmospheric traction had been considered, but not taken further.
At a public meeting on 19 July 1844 Moorsom's proposed route was accepted, and the Weymouth interest was appeased for the time being by a statement of intent to eventually reach their town, and the possible renaming of the line the Southampton and Dorsetshire Railway; the renaming did not last long.
Finding an ally
Castleman realised that he needed the support of a larger company, and the LSWR was the obvious choice, as it would bring London traffic to them at Southampton, and enable them to extend to Exeter. He approached the LSWR with the idea but was rebuffed; evidently they wished to concentrate on reaching Exeter through Salisbury, and they hinted at branches from such a line into Dorset. In the ensuing controversy, Castleman's route became known as "the Coastal Route" to Exeter, and the route via Salisbury "the Central Route". Castleman realised that it was unlikely that both routes would be built, and he pressed the LSWR for undertakings not to develop the Central Route; the larger company again rebuffed him and declined further discussion.
Castleman now took the bold step of offering his line to the rival Great Western Railway, in a letter dated 30 July 1844. Referring to the LSWR he said
... An act, however, of undoubted duplicity on their part, makes me fearful to trust them as they have a scheme of their own for supplying the County of Dorset by means of a line from Salisbury ...
He went on to suggest that the Central Route would abstract traffic from the GWR while his Coastal Route, built on the broad gauge and allied to them, would capture a large tract of territory for them.Letter from Castleman to Chairman of the GWR, dated 30 July 1844, quoted extensively in Cox. The GWR agreed to discuss the matter, and after some weeks, a lease of the future line was signed by them.
Throughout its early existence, the LSWR had been at pains to secure territory in which it might be the dominant, or only, railway company, and the gauge of the track with which a new line was to be built determined its alliance with the broad gauge interests (the GWR, the B&ER and other associated companies) or railways with the standard gauge of . (In this context the latter were usually referred to as "narrow-gauge" railways, and the competitive battles to ensure that new lines were specified to be built to the preferred gauge were referred to as the Gauge War.)
The LSWR were therefore alarmed at this development, as it would bring broad gauge trains into Southampton Docks, the heart of territory the LSWR considered its own, and immediately promoted a rival scheme to reach Wimborne and Dorchester from Salisbury, which it had not yet reached. Opinion in local communities largely favoured the Southampton and Dorchester proposals, seeing the LSWR for the obstructive tactic that it was, and welcoming the competition that GWR alliance would bring to an area dominated by the LSWR. Moreover, Weymouth would get its connection, through the broad gauge Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway now being promoted via Dorchester; and some favoured a coastal line for its usefulness in defensive troop movements in the event of an attack by France. The major disadvantage was that there would be a break of gauge at Southampton for passengers and goods travelling between Dorset and London.
The parliamentary bill Castleman was encouraged now, and Moorsom quickly completed the necessary plans of the route; the GWR guaranteed a 3.5% dividend on S&DR shareholdings, and a bill was presented to Parliament for the 1845 session.
There were 248 railway bills that session, and a Board of Trade Commission, the Railway Board, informally referred to as "the Five Kings", was appointed to determine the relative merits of these schemes and numerous other potentially penetrating routes. At this period it was considered that only one route in any area was supportable, and therefore the Railway Board would choose which. The Five Kings found in favour of certain GWR routes and also the Southampton and Dorchester Railway, and against the LSWR's Central Route. This report was published on 31 December 1844, not mentioning the break of gauge. Shortly afterwards, however the Railway Board recommended that the S&DR line should be leased not to the GWR, but to the LSWR. At a stroke, the fortunes of the GWR and LSWR were reversed, and Castleman had got what he originally wanted.
Lord Dalhousie, the chairman of the Railway Board, encouraged the LSWR, the GWR and Castleman to come to a territorial agreement: there was to be no encroachment into the others' territory without informing each other and the Board of Trade. The GWR lease of the S&DR was transferred to the LSWR.
There was still work to do before going to Parliament, and Moorsom had to defend his planned route. Castleman had given a personal undertaking that the route within Southampton would be on the foreshore, across the mudlands, and would probably have much improved trade in the lower town, but the LSWR were now in control. Castleman's preferred alignment would have enabled the reclamation of a considerable area of useless tidal mud. However the Pier Commissioners demanded the use of horses, and not locomotives, throughout the quays at Southampton, and the LSWR refused to give any such undertaking, and decided upon an alternative route that ran on the landward side of the town and would require a tunnel.
An act secured
Accordingly, the Southampton and Dorchester Railway got its act of Parliament, the (8 & 9 Vict. c. xciii), on 21 July 1845,Act of Parliament 21 July 1845 – Southampton and Dorchester Railway Act (8 & 9 Vict. c. xciii) with authorised capital of £500,000. The lease to the LSWR was authorised in the act. A branch from Hamworthy to the ballast quay at Poole was also authorised, and the broad gauge Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (authorised in the same session of Parliament) could be required to lay narrow gauge rails to give LSWR trains access to Weymouth.Williams, volume 1, chapter 3
The line was to start from a junction near the LSWR Southampton station (later Southampton Terminus) and curve west through a tunnel; at this point the Act required a station to be built at Blechynden Terrace;Some references (Williams, Butt) give the spelling Bletchynden; this seems to be a mistake: Blechynden is given by Cox, writing for the City of Southampton; by Bradshaw 1850 (facsimile edition from Middleton Press); and street names from near-contemporary Ordnance Survey maps; and it is referred to as "the Blechynden Terrace station" in Southampton Borough Council minutes (page 160 in Patterson). this became the present-day Southampton station. From there the line was to run westerly, crossing the River Test at Eling, and then run south-west to Brockenhurst. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests intervened in the alignment of the route through the New Forest, and the intended route through Lyndhurst was not permitted, the line instead making a southward sweep near there. From Brockenhurst the line was to run westward through Ringwood and Wimborne, trending southwest through Broadstone and Wareham, and then west to Dorchester.
The line was planned as part of a through route to Exeter via Bridport and Axminster, and the Dorchester terminus was aligned so as to enable this. The Poole Ballast Quay was at the eastern extremity of the spit of land south of the channel between Holes Bay and Poole Harbour.
Disagreements with the LSWR Although the LSWR had leased the line, the powers to build it rested with Castleman and his colleagues. An early question was whether to build the line as double track; Castleman argued that building as single and doubling later would cost much more, but the LSWR disagreed. Next the LSWR supported a London, Salisbury and Yeovil Railway and a scheme for an Exeter, Yeovil and Dorchester Railway. In retaliation the GWR sponsored an Exeter Great Western Railway. The support given to these schemes was in direct disregard of undertakings mutually given at Dalhousie's suggestion (see above), and the Southampton and Dorchester directors saw that their supposed protector was improperly sponsoring a line that would abstract from their own. Acrimonious personal accusations were made and some were published, and at a twice-yearly meeting of the S&DR the grievances were aired; the outcome was that the LSWR forced another four of their own nominee directors—they already had four out of twelve—on to the S&DR board; with by far the largest block of shares they were easily able to do this.