Scaldwell is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

in the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The village's name means 'spring/stream which is shallow'. Scaldwell is tiny and has neither shops nor pubs; at the time of the 2001 census the parish had a population of 271 living in 113 households, increasing to 302 in 2011 and 304 in 2020. It has an ageing population. The nearest place for school, shop or pub is

Brixworth Brixworth is a large village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 5,162, increasing to 5,228 at the 2011 census. The village's All Saints' Church is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Loca ...

. Scaldwell has a church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. It has a Norman tower and some 13th century-features and was restored in 1863. The village has a traditional green and was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

Ironstone quarrying and the Scaldwell Tramway

The

Staveley Coal and Iron Company The Staveley Coal and Iron Company Limited was an industrial company based in Staveley, near Chesterfield, North Derbyshire. History The company was registered in 1863, appearing in provincial stock exchange reports from 1864. It exploited lo ...

operated a number of

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

quarries around the villages of

Hanging Houghton Hanging Houghton is a small village in West Northamptonshire in England. It is on the A508 road between Brixworth and Lamport, in the civil parish of Lamport. The villages name means 'Houghton (= hill-spur farm/settlement) on a steep slope'. ...

and Scaldwell from 1912 until 1963. The first pits lay to the east of the Scaldwell to Brixworth Road close to Scaldwell, and began producing ore in April 1913. Two separate gauge

tramways Tramway may refer to: * Tramway (industrial), a lightly laid railway for uses such as logging or mining * A tram transport system (public transport vehicles running on rails) ** The tracks which trams run on (also a section of reserved track for t ...

transported ore from the quarries, one serving the Hanging Houghton pits. The second, longer tramway ran from pits east of Scaldwell to a depot north of the village. An

aerial ropeway A material ropeway, ropeway conveyor (or aerial tramway in the US) is a subtype of gondola lift, from which containers for goods rather than passenger cars are suspended. Description Material ropeways are typically found around large mining conc ...

connected the two tramways to sidings on the

Market Harborough Market Harborough is a market town in the Harborough District, Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, in the far southeast of the county, forming part of the border with Northamptonshire. Market Harborough's population was 25,143 in ...

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

railway line. The pits were originally hand-worked, but in 1933 steam

dragline excavator A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. Draglines fall into two broad categories: those that are based on standard, lifting cranes, and the heavy units which have to be built on-site. Mo ...

s were introduced, which made the quarrying faster and more efficient. In 1914, new pits were opened near Grange Farm, a mile south of Scaldwell and the Scaldwell tramway was extended to serve them. New ore fields were leased south of Brixworth in 1939 and the tramway was further extended to reach them. The Brixworth pits continued in production until 1949 when they were abandoned and the tramway extension removed. During the Second World War, a new standard gauge branch line was laid to the Hanging Houghton quarries. Ore from those quarries was no longer carried by the aerial ropeway. The branch was extended to Scaldwell in 1954, and the aerial ropeway was abandoned. Ore was tipped from narrow to standard gauge wagons at Scaldwell. The final ironstone pits in use were a mile and a half southeast of Scaldwell at New Grange Farm. These ceased working in December 1962 and the entire system was abandoned. The narrow-gauge tramway and standard-gauge branch were removed by 1964, and the remaining pits were landscaped and returned to agricultural use. The final ironstone quarrying near Scaldwell was in the northern pit close to Lamport village. Diesel and electric quarrying machines were used and it was served by the standard-gauge tramway. It closed in 1963. The narrow-gauge tramways used steam locomotives throughout the time they operated. The Peckett locomotive ''Scaldwell'' was purchased by the Narrow Gauge Railway Society when the tramway closed and moved to the

Brockham Railway Museum The Brockham Railway Museum was a narrow gauge railway based at the site of the Brockham Limeworks, near Dorking, Surrey. When it closed in 1982, the majority of the collection was moved to the Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre where it for ...

for preservation.

Notable people

Edward Hume Edward Hume (born May 18, 1936) is an American film and television writer, best known for creating and developing several TV series in the 1970s, and for writing the 1983 TV movie ''The Day After''. TV series During the 1970s Hume wrote the ...

(1841–1921), cricketer

References

External links

Some details of the church's architecture
* {{authority control Villages in Northamptonshire Civil parishes in Northamptonshire West Northamptonshire District