Western Way II extant through Gibside

The photos & info below are courtesy of Luke Griffiths, who recently visited Gibside:

This is a man-made bankside .....

..... under which a culvert passes

The bankside is part of an early 18th century embankment over Snipes Dene .....

..... on which the wooden waggonway Western Way II ran through the Gibside estate

Western Way II was completed in 1721 to link Byemoor, Crookgate, Burnopfield and Tanfield Moor to the Tyne at Derwentaugh.    It was built by the 'western coalition' (Clavering, Bowes, Simpson, Harding, Pitt, Ridley) arrayed against those who would become core members of the Grand Allies (Liddel, Montagu, Cotesworth) as described in Tyne & Wear Sitelines.   It would run until 1726, being closed by the complex dealings that led to the forming of the Grand Allies & their Tanfield Waggonway, with its much heavier civil engineering (which avoided wayleave problems). 

Being one of the last major projects before the construction of the Tanfield Way, it was impressive to contemporaries.   One of its leading lights, William Blakiston Bowes, who was also to die in 1721 (leading to his brother George inheriting the Gibside estate), wrote in his diary on its opening day that: 

'we begun to lead down ye new way, which is the beginning of my profitt; it is a work of such great importance and crosses so many Mountains and Vales, which are all levelled, that I can compare it to nothing more properly than to ye Via Appia.' 

The photos & info above are courtesy of Luke Griffiths.