Easy hikes and walks around Highley

A range of four-foot high posts carved with natural history subjects. They include a wast, a woodpecker and an acorn.

Built: 1949 Type: GWR 1500 Length: 33ft 0″ Weight: 58t 4cwt GWR 1501 is the sole survivor of its class, a GWR 1500 class 0-6-0PT shunting engine designed by Frederick Hawksworth. Ordered by GWR but out-shopped under BR, 1501 was completed at Swindon in 1949 and is now owned by the 1501 Pannier Tank Association. Unlike other pannier tanks on the SVR, 1501 has outside cylinders and a taper boiler. The locomotive also uses Walschaerts valve gear and has a maximum boiler pressure of 200psi. The locomotive spent its BR working life hauling rakes of empty coaches in and out of Paddington before the onward march of the modernisation programme led to it being sold in 1961 to the National Coal Board for use at Coventry Colliery, together with 1502 and 1509. Unfortunately people didn’t have as much disposable income in those days, and when it came to preservation after the locos were made redundant again in 1969, only 1501 was able to be preserved; it arrived on the SVR the following year. The long process of restoration began, and was completed in 1997. 1501 has served the SVR faithfully ever since, with a brief break in service for an overhaul, completed in 2012. A powerful locomotive despite its stature, 1501 has been nicknamed ‘the raging bull’ by SVR volunteers and has covered approximately 100,000 miles in preservation. It has been given an extension to its boiler ticket, which now ends on 8th January 2023.

Sculpture of miner standing in colliery lift cage under a clock tower in the former colliery. Sculpture created by David Howorth 1999.

Memorial for Highley Colliery at Severn Valley Country Park This is a winding wheel from the former Highley Colliery which closed in 1969. The site now forms part of the Severn Valley Country Park. The wheel has been placed here to celebrate the people who worked in the local mines.

The cutting is through beds of Highley Sandstone. They were deposited in the river channels on swampy deltas 310 million years ago. Their characteristic grey-green tinge indicates deposition in oxygen-poor conditions of a humid swamp. This is in contrast to the red Alveley Sandstone, seen earlier, formed in the oxygen-rich environment of a semi-arid desert. The pronounced 'bedding planes' running almost horizontally across the rock face, represent breaks in deposition. 'Cross-bedded' or 'current-bedded' layers are inclined at angles to each other. This cross cutting relationship is a result of changing directions in the river current that deposited the sediments, in the same way as changes in wind direction caused the dune-bedding seen in the Bridgnorth Sandstone

This sculpture forms part of the Highley Sculpture Trail, commissioned by the Highley Initiative. THE TWO BOOKENDS' represent duality - Top' and 'Bottom' ends of the village which joined to form Highley as it exists now; two mines (Alveley and Highley), two sides of a team game and two types of sandstone (red and grey) quarried in Medieval Highley. A chase cuts through the panel linking the two ends like a tunnel through a mine or a bridge between communities. THE PANEL OF CERAMIC TILES depicts designs done by children and young people of Highley and how the village 'seems' to them, a memory map in poems and drawings. The selected images were arranged into the composition by the Artist and faithfully reproduced into hand-made tiles by local ceramic artist Elaine Gregory. The smaller tiles are Elaine's own designs depicting the local flora which inspires her. 'HOW IT SEEMS, HOW IT SEAMS' is the song, or mantra, of the steam trains I heard in a dream. A mantra is a cyclical phrase which, when repeated in meditation, transcends the mind from the mundane to the philosophical and spiritual level. SEVEN RECTANGLES cut out from the ceramic panel allude to the 'Seven Sisters' a row of 400 year old trees located by the Old Vicarage and shaped into giant candelabras. Only four now remain. The poem 'The Old Tree' by Carly Reynolds featured on one of the tiles is a poignant reminder of loss. These rectangular voids are also represented in the seven pavement trail bronze plaques that meander up through the village- the 'seam'. THE STEEL GIRDERS represent failway tracks. ARTIST & DESIGNER SARANJIT BIRDI

Highley railway station is a station on the Severn Valley Railway heritage line in Shropshire, near the west bank of the River Severn and just under a mile south-east of the village of Highley. Highley is the only staffed single-platform station on the line. Other stops with one platform are unstaffed halts. The only station on the Severn Valley Railway with only one platform! Beautifully restored in traditional GWR style, the station is just a short walk from The Engine House! Highley station opened to the public on 1 February 1862 and closed on 9 September 1963, before the Beeching axe closures. Highley station was important as the transport hub of a colliery district, with four nearby coal mines linked to the Severn Valley line by standard and narrow gauge lines, cable inclines and aerial ropeways . There were extensive sidings along the line, and wagon repair works at Kinlet, half-a-mile south. The station was inconveniently far from Highley so the arrival of a bus service seriously affected use of the station. The signal box opposite the platform remained in use until 1969 when Alveley colliery closed and freight traffic ceased. The station site was disused until preservation.

The old Alveley Colliery bridge was given a temporary reprieve back in September, when engineers decided that it was too risky to work on its replacement over the winter. Thus it seems likely that it will survive until this August. There is perhaps some irony in the fact that back in 1936/7 it was built in under a year and work continued all winter with no serious mishaps. The key to this was the way in which it was built, as a “balanced cantilever”. Essentially, this means that it was designed as a see-saw. The bridge has three arches; a large one in the middle over the river and two smaller ones either side to connect with the access roads. These are the “land arches”. The bridge was designed so that all the weight rests on the two piers that are either side of the river. The land arches run from these to walls that support the access roads and hold back the approach embankments; the abutment walls. However, these were designed so that they did not carry any of the weight of the bridge, they simply supported the approach roads. The key part of the structure was the two parallel reinforced concrete beams that ran continuously over the piers from Highley to Alveley and which supported the deck (the surface of the bridge over which people walked). As long as the reinforcing held, the bridge was safe. The bridge led an uneventful life until the 1960’s. However, the Severn Valley is a notoriously difficult area for buildings. The ground is unstable, frequently slipping towards the river. This had started to take its toll on the bridge; the pressure of the ground was forcing the piers into the river. In addition, the abutment walls had cracks and the deck of the bridge was worn and needed replacing. Thus in 1967 the Coal Board decided it needed major repairs. The main work was to stabilise the base of the piers. Coffer dams were constructed and the ground was built up to help the piers resist the thrust from the side of the banks. This part of the work passed without incident. The abutment walls were demolished and work started on rebuilding them. Again, this went smoothly, although the bridge apparently flexed visibly when heavy machinery was working on it whilst the abutment walls were missing. The deck was removed with pneumatic picks. Unfortunately, over the Highley land arch, the picks went in too deep and exposed a joint between the reinforcing rods in the beams that supported the deck. The joints failed spectacularly, the concrete cracked and the beams fell several feet at their landward ends until they came to rest on the partially rebuilt abutment wall. It is believed this incident caused a certain amount of panic at Coal Board Area HQ. Ladders were rigged up to allow men to pass over the dropped beams; without this, an entire shift would have been trapped on the Alveley side of the river. The beams were lifted back into more or less their correct place by jacks and the abutment was hastily rebuilt to support them. There was still a difference of a few inches between the top of the beam and the level of the approach road from Highley but this was made up by increasing the deck thickness with concrete from 6" to around 9". The repaired crack was carefully monitored but there is no suggestion that it has moved. The excitement with the deck replacement meant that the repairs were not finished until October 1968. They meant that the bridge was no longer a balanced cantilever. By the time they were complete, the colliery was in its death-throes, closing in January 1969. Thus ended one of the less cost-effective jobs undertaken by the Coal Board in the West Midlands. It may however be suspected that the Area Engineer’s office was pleased to be rid of the bridge with its now unorthodox structure.