It was customary in the 19th century that when a new railway line was opened, a ceremonial train would carry the line’s directors, shareholders and local dignitaries from the far end of the route to the beginning, accompanied by the sounds of bands playing and crowds cheering, followed by a sumptuous meal and many toasts to the success of the new venture. Thus it was that on 11th March 1861, a special train set off at 9.00 for Castle Douglas to mark the inauguration of the Portpatrick Railway. This was to be no local branch line, but a major inter-city route, as its original title was the “British and Irish Grand Junction Railway”. The construction of the line was to be accompanied by major improvements to the harbour at Portpatrick, providing a state-of-the-art port that would take advantage of the short sea crossing between Britain and Ireland. Income would be supplemented by the railway and shipping lines winning the Post Office contract to transport mail between the two lands. At the celebratory lunch at the Douglas Arms hotel, the chairman of the company, Lord Dalrymple (later the 10th Earl of Stair) proposed the toast, “Success to the Portpatrick Railway”.
Except that all was not as rosy as it seemed. The special train began its journey at Stranraer, as the line from Portpatrick had not been completed. The works to improve the harbour at Portpatrick had not yet begun. The Postmaster General was silent on whether the mail contract would be given to the short sea route. In the event, Stranraer became the port for Ireland, not Portpatrick. The half-completed harbour at Portpatrick became a white elephant, and the railway between Stranraer and Portpatrick was reduced to a branch line. In this article we will trace the convoluted history of the railway from Stranraer to Portpatrick – the unwanted final few miles of the ‘Port Road’, as the Portpatrick Railway was known.
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| The railway arrives at Portpatrick. Trains emerged from a deep curving cutting and steamed along the hillside above the village to the station at the top of Main Street |
“The Fatal Allure of the Short Sea Route”
Look over the sea from the promenade at Portpatrick on a clear day and you will see Northern Ireland, just 18 miles away. In the 19th century, as Fraser McHaffie put it, this short sea route had a “fatal allure” for those vying to make money from travel between Scotland and Ireland. In the days of sailing ships, sea travel was slow, uncomfortable, unreliable and sometimes dangerous, and many travellers preferred to minimise the time they spent at sea. This gave the route from Portpatrick to Donaghadee an advantage, and in the first half of the century there was considerable traffic of passengers, goods and livestock, and it was the chosen route for the Royal Mail to Ireland. A harbour and pier had been constructed at Portpatrick by John Smeaton in the 1770s, and in 1821 work started on a new harbour, designed by John Rennie, who also designed a new, enlarged harbour at Donaghadee.
The coming of steamships further enhanced the Portpatrick to Donaghadee route. In 1825, two steam packets, the Dasher and the Arrow improved both the speed and reliability of the mail crossings. However, the short sea crossing was not without its problems. The weather in the North Channel was often severe, leading to disruption of the service. In December 1830, Dasher was driven onto rocks south of the harbour and wrecked in a storm, with a female passenger killed. Progress on completing the harbour was slow, and Rennie's piers were sometimes damaged by severe weather. The harbour area was cramped and the depth of water was shallow, leading to doubts that Portpatrick could accommodate future generations of steamships. Local opinion was divided as to whether Portpatrick was the best site for a port, with some promoting Stranraer and others Cairnryan, both longer voyages but easier crossings and more accommodating harbours.
The coming of the railways added a new dimension to the debate. Railway companies began to be formed in Scotland in the early 1840s. Glasgow and Edinburgh were linked in 1842, and Scotland was linked to England in 1848, with the opening of lines from Carlisle via Carstairs and from Berwick along the east coast. A network of connecting lines began to be established, including links from the major cities to coastal ports. These speeded up transport, including the passage of the Royal Mail. In 1848, the mail from London to Ireland was routed via the newly completed railway to Holyhead in North Wales and by sea to Dublin. Then in 1849, a Glasgow Shipowner, George Burns, dealt a hammer blow to Portpatrick by offering to transport the mail from Scotland to Ireland free of charge, taking advantage of the new rail link from Glasgow to Greenock, from where his ships sailed to Belfast. As well as saving money, this proposal would save time, as the speed of the railway more than made up for the longer sea crossing. Burns’s offer was accepted, and the regular steam packet service from Portpatrick to Donaghadee was suspended.
The only way that Portpatrick could win the mail back was by providing its own railway link. In 1850, the Glasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle railway opened, and in 1859 a service was established from Dumfries to Castle Douglas. But some years before, Gallovidian landowners and businessmen had proposed a railway from Castle Douglas to Stranraer and Portpatrick, linking Galloway to the rest of Britain, provided the government agreed to finally complete the harbours at Portpatrick and Donaghadee, and to restore the Scotland to Ireland mail service. Negotiations with the government were complex, summarised by Fraser McHaffie thus:
“The railway companies said they would build the rail connection if the Treasury would appropriate the funds for improving the harbours. The Treasury said the money could be found if the Admiralty determined that Portpatrick and Donaghadee were the most suitable for the mail service and the Post Office adopt the route as the mail passage between Scotland and Ireland. The Post Office said it would send the mails via Portpatrick and pay a reasonable fee if private enterprise provided the actual steamboat connection”.
In July 1856 the Admiralty confirmed to the Treasury that it supported the Portpatrick to Donaghadee route, and on 15th August 1856, the Treasury issued a “minute” releasing £15,000 to improve the harbour at Portpatrick and £10,000 for Donaghadee. With this assurance, the optimistically titled British and Irish Grand Junction Railway Company was formed, though by the time the line received parliamentary approval in August 1857, its name had become the Portpatrick Railway Company.
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| Railways built to Stranraer and Portpatrick. Stranraer Town station was connected to Dumfries in 1861; the branches to Stranraer Harbour and Portpatrick opened in 1862, and the line from Girvan and the north was completed in 1877. |
The Portpatrick Railway Company
Construction of the line between Stranraer and Castle Douglas began in 1859. Controversially, the 68 mile line took a northerly route across largely empty moorland, avoiding population centres such as Kirkcudbright and Gatehouse of Fleet (Kirkcudbright was served by a branch line and Gatehouse of Fleet station was in the middle of the moors some six miles from the town), though the route did pass through Newton Stewart and Glenluce. It was single-track, with passing loops; there was enough space for it to become double-track if there was sufficient demand, but that never happened. The line was steam-powered throughout its 104-year life. Locals often complained that the timetables favoured the Irish boat trains (known as ‘Paddies’) over local services. In 1877, a branch line was built between Newton Stewart and Whithorn, and the company name became the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Railway. The railway was universally known as the “Port Road” – but to which port?
The contract for the Stranraer to Portpatrick section was not awarded until March 1860, a year after the rest of the line. This was due to ongoing uncertainty about the viability of the harbour at Portpatrick. Even the harbourmaster at Portpatrick, Edward Hawes, advocated using his port just for mails, passengers and light goods, with heavy goods going via Stranraer. The Portpatrick Railway Company hedged its bets by building a branch line to Stranraer harbour, where the town council was investing in upgrading the piers. The government dragged its feet about commencing work on Portpatrick harbour, and as we saw above, work had not begun when the Stranraer-Castle Douglas line opened in March 1861, though it was underway by the end of that month. The railway to Portpatrick was by now under construction.
Portpatrick Harbour and the Stranraer to Portpatrick Line
John Rennie’s design for Portpatrick harbour proposed two piers built out to sea, creating a horseshoe shaped harbour. The southern pier had been completed, with lighthouses at each end, but the northern pier was still a stump. The 1856 Admiralty plan added an inner basin, to provide extra shelter and accommodate larger steamships. Ominously, however, this basin was to be just an acre in extent, the largest area that could be managed given Portpatrick’s topography, but already small for the latest generation of steamships. Work focused on the basin rather than the northern pier, despite the latter being vital for safe entry and exit to the harbour in bad weather. The basin was completed and filled with water in July 1863. Work then continued to dredge the outer harbour to improve the depth of water, but winter gales caused further damage and progress was slow. The northern pier had not been completed. And the Post Office was losing interest in the short sea crossing. Most of the mail between England, Scotland and Ireland was now being directed through Holyhead and Dublin, while Burns’s steamers continued to carry mail from Glasgow to Belfast. In 1865, the Post Office concluded that there was “little want of this additional communication by Portpatrick and Donaghadee”. In 1866, work on the harbour was suspended.
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| John Rennie's design for Portpatrick harbour involved building two piers out to sea. The southern pier was completed by the 1830s but has since been largely destroyed by the sea. Its landward section can be seen to the right of the lighthouse. The northern pier was never completed; the stump in the sea on the right of this picture (above the lifeboat) is all that remains of it today. To the far right is the basin that was completed in 1863. |
By contrast, work on the railway proceeded relatively smoothly, despite the hilly terrain. The line was seven and a quarter miles long and cost £70,000 to build. A 13-arch viaduct had to be built to cross the Piltanton Burn near Lochans, and a long, curving cutting was blasted through solid rock to bring the line along the coast from Dunskey Castle into Portpatrick, where it terminated at a station and goods yard at the top of the village. The village of Lochans did not warrant a station; instead a stop was established in open countryside mid-way between Stranraer and Portpatrick and named Colfin.
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| The line approached Portpatrick via Portree viaduct... |
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| ...before heading towards Dunskey Castle and the sea (the trackbed today bisects two caravan parks)... |
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| ...passing through a long, curving cutting... |
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| ...along which was a blowhole that tested train crews' resolve in bad weather... |
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| ...before emerging above the village. |
As with all 19th century railways, construction was done by gangs of navvies, many from Ireland. Some lodged in Portpatrick; in 1861 two families of Irish navvies, six people in all, were renting a single room in a house in Colonel Street. Accidents sometimes occurred. In November 1861, two youths were killed when scaffolding on Piltanton Viaduct collapsed, causing them to fall sixty feet into the burn, and in July 1862, two men were badly injured when blasting rock at Colfin station.
The railway was required to reach Portpatrick harbour. The original plan for this was a spectacular 350-yard tunnel descending at a gradient of 1 in 35 from the site of the town station, curving round nearly 360 degrees to emerge from the cliff side to the north of the harbour. A terminus, with passenger and goods facilities was to be built beside the new harbour basin. In the event, a much more modest design was adopted, with a branch line descending from the town station, crossing the main road at a bridge, and terminating by the harbour. The gradient was still 1 in 35, which would have felt rather like a ride on a roller coaster. A simple platform and sidings were built at the end of the line.
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| The original plan for the line included a spectacular 350 yard tunnel that would have emerged from the northern cliff face at this point, with a station and goods terminal next to the harbour. |
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| The more modest final plan was for a branch line descending from the town station to the harbour. It crossed Main street at a bridge. The bridge was removed in 1902, but the abutments remain - and make a useful advertising hoarding. |
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| The site of the harbour station has long been used as a bowling green, tennis courts and a playground. |
The railway to Portpatrick and the harbour branch opened on Thursday 28th August 1862. Celebrations were however muted, as the harbour was incomplete and its future had not been settled. As noted above, the Post Office was losing interest in the short sea route. In 1866, responsibility for harbours passed from the Admiralty to the Board of Trade, which made it clear that it saw no future for Portpatrick. In 1868, work on the harbour was formally stopped, and the Portpatrick Railway Company was offered financial compensation for their lost investment in the line to Portpatrick.
The Sirens of Donaghadee
So the town of Portpatrick was left with a white elephant in the form of an unwanted harbour basin, and the Portpatrick Railway Company was left with a line (and a name) that could not now fulfil its original purpose. Sailings were by now taking place between Stranraer and Ireland, and the regular service from Stranraer to Larne commenced in 1872. H.D. Thorne, historian of the Portpatrick Railway, observed that without the Government’s 1856 promise of support for Portpatrick harbour, the line from Stranraer would never have been built. In the event, Portpatrick fell into a state of economic depression and the Company was left with an unremunerative branch line.
There were, however, some optimists who were still under the spell of the short sea crossing to Donaghadee. In 1868, the pithily named Donaghadee and Portpatrick Short Sea Steam Packet Company Limited (try to say it quickly) was formed by Belfast businessmen with the backing of the Portpatrick Railway Company. A paddle steamer named Dolphin was purchased to provide a twice-a-day return service between Portpatrick and Donaghadee, linking with trains to Stranraer and Castle Kennedy. The Dolphin was 172 feet long, making it 22 feet larger than Portpatrick harbour had been designed for, and the largest ship ever to use the harbour.
The service commenced on Monday 13th July 1868, seeking to attract through travellers and excursionists. In September, advertisements began to include the promise that “the train now comes alongside the steamer at Portpatrick”, implying that carriages made the somewhat hair-raising descent down the harbour branch line. This went in the reverse direction to the main line, meaning that carriages had to be shunted a few at a time at the town station and down the branch line, an operation that must have taken longer than transporting passengers by road. It is unclear how long (or if at all) this arrangement continued, but it was apparently the only time that passengers ever used the Portpatrick harbour branch.
The Dolphin could not pay its way, and the service was suspended before the end of the year. A couple of further attempts were made to utilise Portpatrick harbour for summer excursion traffic, in association with the railway company. In 1870 a steamer named Reliance made a few sailings in August and September, and in 1871 the Aber did likewise, before being rammed and sunk in fog (all passengers and crew were rescued). Then in summer 1874 the Avalon sailed for five weeks. By now however, the railway company had lost interest in supporting such ventures, and refused to offer cheap excursion deals. In September 1874 the harbour branch was formally closed down and the rails lifted for reuse as sidings at Newton Stewart. In 1889, the site of the harbour station was rented out as a bowling green and (later) tennis courts, which still exist, and in 1902 the bridge across the main road was taken down, though the stone abutments remain.
In 1877, the Girvan and Portpatrick Joint Railway Company completed its line from the north to Challoch Junction, near Dunragit, thereby providing a direct link from Glasgow to Stranraer and (potentially) Portpatrick. As will be seen, this link became important for excursion traffic.
The very last attempt to use the short sea route was in 1891, when the aptly named Terrible began a daily return service in July. It was plagued by mechanical problems, and sailed for the last time before the month was out.
The Branch Line and the Resort
And so the Stranraer to Portpatrick railway became a quiet branch line, one of hundreds lain across the country in the nineteenth century. At first there were just two or three trains per day each way, carrying both passengers and goods (unlike main lines, where passenger traffic was dominant, branch lines often carried more goods than passengers, which is why many stayed open for goods traffic after passenger trains were withdrawn). Trains took seventeen minutes to travel the seven miles from and to Stranraer Town station, including a stop at Colfin, which sometimes included collecting goods wagons. Stranraer Town station was the start and finish point for local services on the Port Road, while the 'Paddies' (boat trains) used Stranraer Harbour station. Portpatrick’s Free Church Minister, the Rev. Andrew Urquhart, wrote to the local paper to insist that trains did not disturb the Sabbath, but he needn’t have worried, as no trains travelled on any part of the Port Road on a Sunday until 1927. Trains on the branch line rarely exceeded a couple of carriages.
Staffing the line was similarly low key. In 1862, one James Kennedy, who had proved inadequate as station master at Newton Stewart, was banished to Colfin, where he earned 14 shillings per week. In the early 1900s, Colfin’s station master’s wage was 26 shillings per week, the lowest on the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Railway (the station master at Portpatrick earned 28 shillings).
The presence of the railway did however bring benefits to Portpatrick and the local area, which in turn boosted traffic on the line. By the early 1900s, it was reported that a “surprising amount” of goods traffic was being carried on the branch, mainly agricultural produce and livestock. In 1907, a Creamery was built beside Colfin station, and milk and dairy products were transported directly to Willesden in north London.
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| Colfin Creamery was built next to the line (the station was beyond the right-hand building). It is now a restaurant. |
The railway also kickstarted Portpatrick’s future as a holiday and excursion resort. Leisure time was enhanced for all classes in the latter years of the nineteenth century by the growth of the railways, as they allowed for cheaper and quicker travel for all. Portpatrick began to become a resort at this time, promoting itself on its ‘bracing’ climate (bracing was a virtue in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). Pleasure seekers arrived on the scheduled services, and also on occasional excursion trains. In 1900, C.L. Orr-Ewing became Laird of Dunskey, and actively sought to enhance Portpatrick’s attractiveness as a resort, building a new row of boarding houses on Blair Terrace. In the 1900s, Portpatrick acquired tennis courts and a golf course, and the formidable Portpatrick hotel overlooking the harbour. Lord Gordon (Laird Orr-Ewing’s father-in-law) publicly criticised the train service at the hotel’s opening ceremony, and shortly afterwards, the service was increased to six return trains per day (reduced to four in 1914) and the platform at Portpatrick station was extended to accommodate longer excursion trains.
In 1909, the Ferguslie Thread Mills of Paisley chose Portpatrick for its annual works outing, and some 2000 women and girls arrived in four special trains. They were well entertained, despite poor weather, but while waiting for the return home, an 18-year old girl named Rachel Douglas fell onto the track and was killed by a train. This tragic incident was commemorated by a motif of a pair of scissors carved into the edge of the platform. When the station closed and the platform was demolished, the stone with the scissors motif was rescued along with a short section of track, and still stands (though much worn down) in the grounds of Portpatrick school.
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| A pair of scissors was carved into a stone at the platform edge to commemorate Rachel Douglas, killed by a train in 1909. When the line closed, the stone was preserved and set up, with a short section of rail, in front of Portpatrick school, where it can still be seen, though the carving has worn away. |
In 1923, the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Railway Company became part of the mighty London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). The LMS continued summer excursion trains from Glasgow, and the sight of these ten-coach, double-headed trains steaming over the village to the station must have been spectacular.
The End of the Line
In
1948, the railways were nationalised, and the newly formed Scottish
Region of British Railways wasted little time in reviewing the
network. Despite the benefits it afforded Portpatrick in terms of
boosting it as a resort, the Stranraer to Portpatrick branch line had
never been economic, and the growth of road traffic further reduced
its value. On 6th
February 1950, the Portpatrick branch became the first line in
Galloway to be closed to passengers (it was followed in
September of that year by the branch from Newton Stewart to
Whithorn). Goods trains continued to run to the Creamery at Colfin
until 1959, when the whole line was lifted. The Piltanton viaduct was demolished, along with some of the line's bridges. The site of Portpatrick
station became a caravan park, and later a housing estate.
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| These buildings on the site of Portpatrick station were apparently built after the line closed and the platform and station buildings removed. |
The line from Dumfries to Stranraer continued until the 1963 Beeching review recommended its closure, along with the line from the north to Stranraer, which would have left Galloway without any remaining railways. In the event, the route to Stranraer from Glasgow was retained, but the ‘Port Road’ closed on 14th June 1965, and Stranraer Town station a year later.
The short(ish) sea route to Ireland is still plied by regular ferry services, but now from Cairnryan rather than Stranraer. The railway however continues to terminate at the end of the pier at Stranraer harbour, the last legacy of the hopes and dreams of the promoters of the “British and Irish Grand Junction Railway”.
Sources Used
Cunningham R (2004) Portpatrick through the Ages. Dumfries: Alba Printers
Griffiths T & Morton G (eds) A History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1800-1900. Edinburgh University Press
McHaffie F (2001) Portpatrick to Donaghadee: The Original Short Sea Route. Stranraer & District Local History Trust
Swan A (2017) The Port Road. Lydney: Lightmoor Press
Thorne HD (2005) Rails to Portpatrick. Wigton: GC Books
Wolmar C 2007) Fire & Steam: How the Railways Transformed Britain. London: Atlantic Books
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