Ram Hill
| Ram Hill | |
| Gloucestershire | |
|---|---|
 Ram Hill, looking towards Henfield | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST678798 |
| Location: | 51°31’0"N, 2°27’55"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Bristol |
| Postcode: | BS36 |
| Dialling code: | 01454 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | South Gloucestershire |
Ram Hill is a hamlet in Gloucestershire, between Coalpit Heath (a sizable village to the north-west) and Westerleigh (to the south-east). Adjoining Ram Hill immediately to the south is a similarly sized hamlet, Henfield: and these two are just a mile from the M4 motorway, beyond which the suburbs of Bristol suddenly begin.
In the Mudge Map 1815, Ram Hill was known as 'Nutridge Hill', and was linked to Westerleigh by Broad Lane and to Mays Hill by Frog Lane.[1]
Ram Hill is a small hamlet that has seen considerable land use change over the recent centuries moving from a traditional agricultural landscape to an active coal mining area by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The population would have increased at that time supported by the introduction of new miner's cottages by the Coalpit Heath Colliery Company.
The closure of Ram Hill Colliery and Churchleaze Pits in the 1860s represented change but the new branch line to the Frog Lane Pit along with the movement of labour to the pit and the nearby Parkfield Colliery would have ensured that the industrial nature of the area was maintained to well into the twentieth century. In 1903 the new Great Western Railway direct route through Badminton to South Wales and the railway sidings at Coalpit Heath Railway Station would also have had an impact.
The closure of the Frog Lane Pit at Coalpit Heath in 1949 represented a step change in the area and Ram Hill reverted to its agricultural roots, a dispersed linear settlement, adjoining the London to South Wales railway, surrounded by pastoral agricultural land. There were new additions at that time with further ribbon development consolidating the 1920s/30s "plotlands" developments along the convergent minor roads. Another addition was the introduction of a caravan site at Greenacres.
Ram Hill was peaceful in the 1950s and early 1960s without extensive noise and light pollution. The construction of the M4 motorway to the south of Henfield in the late 1960s began to change the character of the area and the increasing encroachment of night-time lights highlighted the continuing expansion of Bristol and Yate. In time Ram Hill has lost its rural tranquillity and adopted a new role as a commuter satellite to the main urban areas. At the same time the character of the landscape has changed with dairy farming being replaced by new uses in particular horse breeding.
Industrial archaeology
Coal mines
Ram Hill is situated near the centre of the North Bristol Coal Field, this area at one time having been a coal mining community. Coal had been mined in this area since the fourteenth century and most likely even earlier. However it was Sir Samuel Astry, Lord of the Manor of Westerleigh c1680 who started mining on a grander scale and his descendants, or their business partners, continued to be connected with the Coalpit Heath Colliery Company.[1]
Within Ram Hill itself there were four mines operational in the early nineteenth century:
- Ram Hill Engine Pit was an older pit that lay 300 yards downhill to the west of the Ram Hill Colliery. The pit shaft had a depth of 510 ft and the 1772 map records that an early pumping beam engine operated in the pit. According to MJH Southway (1971) the engine at this site had a 7 ft stroke, working 8 strokes per minute and raising 28 gallons per stroke by means of an 11" pump lifting 224 gallons per minute.[2]
- Ram Hill Colliery site lies beside the railway line and stands on British Rail land near the Ha' Penny Bridge. The pit was 558 ft deep and was abandoned around 1860.[3] A number of remains are discernible on the ground including the horse gin, the shaft and the tramway lines finishing at an arch. In 2006 the Ram Hill Colliery site was designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
- Churchleaze No. 1 Pit lay beside the Dramway where it crosses Serridge Lane (previously known as Churchleaze). The mine site was clearly visible in the 1960s but was "tidied up" by a local farmer and now apart from a declivity in the ground no traces of the pit remain.
- Churchleaze No. 2 Pit lay to the south of Pit No. 1, adjoining Henfield Road.[4]
The underground map of around 1850 shows that the underground roads of the Ram Hill Colliery and Churchleaze pits on Ram Hill joined together with those of the Serridge Engine and New Engine pits in Henfield.
Dramway
In the Railway Act of 1828, parliament granted permission to the Avon and Gloucester Railway Company to build a Dramway (a horse-drawn railway) from Ram Hill to the River Avon and this section of the Dramway was completed and in use by July 1832. The Ram Hill Colliery was the northern terminus of the Dramway and to the south of Bitterwell Lake there was also a southern spur to New Engine Pit in Henfield.
This early tramway scheme was designed to provide transport from the mines of Coalpit Heath to the wharves on the Avon at Keynsham which supplied both Bristol and Bath. The Dramway was built as a single track railway, built to a standard 4 ft 8in gauge, with passing places along the route. The whole length of the railway was built on a down hill gradient dropping 225 ft along the route. It lasted only nine years before a steam railway connected the pits.[5]
Railways
Soon after the horse-drawn tramway was in operation pressure built up to convert the line to accommodate steam driven locomotives as the Great Western Railway (GWR) were keen to build a 7 ft gauge line from Bristol to Gloucester. The Bristol and Gloucester Company under the influence of the GWR started to convert the 4 ft 8in tramway to a 7 ft railway on 5 June 1844 and this was completed by 9 July. However the colliery owners at Coalpit Heath still had the right to transport their coal in 4 ft 8in trucks and the section of Dramway from Bitterwell Lake to Mangotsfield North Junction was the first dual gauge railway in the country. The line was sold to the Midland Railway in 1845 rather than to the GWR.
The South Wales Main Line was re-routed following the opening of the Severn Tunnel in 1886. The new route was established in 1903 with the building of what is often known as the Badminton Line.[6] This involved the construction of about 33 miles of new track, part of which skirted Ram Hill and Coalpit Heath. The Great Western Railway purchased the land at the Ram Hill Colliery site in 1898 and a deep railway cutting was created immediately north of the former mine.[7]
To the west the Coalpit Heath Railway Station was opened and goods yard sidings established. The station fell victim to Dr Beeching's cuts and was closed in the 1960s.
Community facilities
Being a small hamlet Ram Hill does not have its own community facilities although the social facilities are available at Coalpit Heath Cricket Club in Serridge Lane. Social and recreational facilities are provided at Henfield Village Hall, Bitterwell Lake and the Newman Field amenity area in the adjoining hamlet of Henfield.
The hamlet is well served with footpaths and cycleways.
Sport and recreation
 |
 |
- Cricket: Coalpit Heath Cricket Club[8]
- Scouts: The scout hut, on Serridge Lane, is known as 'Mafeking Hall'
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Ram Hill) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Ram Hill Colliery – Site Report and Conservation Plan". South Gloucestershire Council. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110927040335/http://www.southglos.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/03B0156F-9C28-4813-AFFF-A6C10DD65BCD/0/PTE070343.pdf. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ↑ Southway, MJH, ed (1971). Kingswood Coal Part 2, in the magazine of Bristol Industrial Archaeology Society Vol 5. p. 115.
- ↑ "Scheduled Ancient Monument Notification – Ram Hill Colliery and Dramway". English Heritage. http://www.southglos.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E2F74965-6666-4791-B342-22BA002BF3BF/0/PTE070504.pdf. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
- ↑ "The Ram Hill Colliery site". Winterbourne – South Gloucestershire. http://www.winterbourne.freeuk.com/ramhill.html. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
- ↑ "South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group". http://www.sgmrg.co.uk/news-sgmrg.php. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ↑ Kevin Robertson and David Abbott (1988). GWR The Badminton Line – A portrait of a railway. Sutton Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-86299-459-4.
- ↑ "Ram Hill Colliery – Site Report and Conservation Plan". South Gloucestershire Council. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110927040335/http://www.southglos.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/03B0156F-9C28-4813-AFFF-A6C10DD65BCD/0/PTE070343.pdf. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
- ↑ [Coalpit Heath Cricket Club