With the Brighton main line effectively out of service between Croydon and Gatwick over the next three weekends, our gratitude for the amenity that the railway line provides ought to be a touch improved. You never appreciate what you have until it’s gone.
Digging for Britain: the navvies finial, commemorating the men who built the railways through Coulsdon
So it is an appropriate time for Coulsdon locals to hoist their latest commemorative history finial into place, to celebrate the hard work of the 19th Century navvies who built the railway between London and the south coast, using just picks and shovels, and the occasional stick of dynamite.
Finials are small, stylised metal models, and over the past five years a dozen of them have been placed at the top of signposts and lampposts around Coulsdon town centre, commemorating the history of Coulsdon and Smitham Bottom. The subjects were selected from a list of suggestions that were put together from a public consultation by East Coulsdon Residents’ Association.
The Brighton line between Croydon and Brighton was approved by an Act of Parliament in 1836, to connect with the existing London and Croydon railway running from London Bridge to West Croydon. Construction south of Croydon began in 1838.
The section of line from Coulsdon to Merstham was laid over parts of its predecessor, the Surrey Iron Railway – which was pulled by horses, rather than steam engines. Sections of the Surrey Iron Railway can still be seen at the back of Lion Green car park (excavation works delayed the building of Brick by Brick’s flats on the site), and to the south of Hooley.
Early steam trains did not have the power to make up any sort of incline. So railway engineers had to make the track’s route as flat as possible, and this often involved cutting through hills.
Get digging: the Merstham tunnel is more than a mile long. It was dug by hand
The line between Coulsdon South and Merstham tunnel is in a deep cutting – 90-foot deep at its deepest point – when passing through Hooley prior to the mile-long tunnel, one of five tunnels on the line.
The cuttings and tunnels were dug entirely by hand by “navigators”, or navvies, hardy labourers brought to the area mostly from Ireland, but also from Yorkshire.
Navvies built canals, railways, docks and the other major civil engineering projects that dragged 17th Century Britain into the industrial era. The term “navigators” derives from their building of the canals, or “navigations” that provided the Industrial Revolution with its first transport system, before the coming of the railways.
The navvies were tough and hardy, often sleeping in tents near their work site, some with their wives and children accompanying them.
To keep the navigators fed and watered on the Merstham dig, boys were employed to bring barrels of beer from local pubs. They managed to get through so much beer (at that time, water was not considered safe to drink…), that the ale was supplied by pubs from as far away as The Woodman in Woodmansterne.
The navvies from Ireland in the 19th Century were often fleeing famine and hunger. Working in England paid a daily wage, but came also came at a huge cost: at least 11 men were killed building the stretch of railway, the cuttings and tunnel near Coulsdon.
Cutting work: the deep embankment by Woodplace Lane is another example of the labour of the navvies
The Brighton line opened through Coulsdon in 1841, with the first local station being at Stoats Nest, adjacent to Stoats Nest Farm. At first, it had three trains per day in each direction.
The finial depicts two navigators with wheelbarrow and pick, with a section of tunnel and cutting. The finial is placed in the community garden at Coulsdon South Station as part of Rail 200 – the celebration of 200 years of British railways.
The navvies finial is the 12th in the series.
The 11th, of a woolly mammoth, was unveiled last month: it commemorates the discovery of the bones of the ice age animal that were discovered in 1897 by navvies when they were digging out the Quarry Line, a fast track that went through the grounds of Cane Hill.
The first three finials were unveiled in early 2021, with a further two put in place in 2022.
Two more went up during 2023, including one to commemorate John Logie Baird.
In 2024, a finial was positioned outside the Coulsdon Club, recognising one of Britain’s greatest distance runners, and Coulsdon resident, Gordon Pirie.
Other Coulsdon finials include James Cooper, a notorious highway man who was arrested, tried and executed at Smitham Bottom in August 1749, and the 1788 visit to the town of the Prince of Wales, who was to become King George IV, in order to watch an illegal boxing match.
The Coulsdon Art Trail finials also include portrayals of Cuthraed, the Saxon warrior after whom Coulsdon is named; a flower, the greater yellow rattle, which grows prolifically on Farthing Downs and Happy Valley; the Surrey Iron Railway, Britain’s first public railway; the first cricket match on Lion Green in 1739; and Emmeline Pankhurst, who spoke on Votes from Women in April 1911 at Smitham Parish Hall.
The Coulsdon Art Trail has been paid for by ECRA, with additional donations from individuals and businesses of Coulsdon. If you would like to donate for the next finials, please contact East Coulsdon RA at info@eastcoulsdon.co.uk
Read more: Coulsdon finial gives ‘Puff-puff’ Pirie a proper podium finish
Read more: How Dick Turpin’s life of crime included a hold-up in Shirley
Read more: Coulsdon signs leave a trail of Saxon kings, cricket and plants
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Was the finial of Cuthraed erected in Cuthered Mews (a new cul-de-sac of housing off Brighton Road just south of the bypass), which was probably also named after him?
Coulsdon East is the manor of notorious rabble-rouser, Peter Morgan. Did he suggest having a finial of himself speeding through Coulsdon in fume-belcher and running over pedestrians ?