Cuddle Country.

Despite the humorous name, Cuddle really exists. It’s not a place as such, it’s the name of one of the hills that sit atop the the cliffs that form what is known as “The Jurassic Coast” World Heritage Site in southern England. You can see it named on this old Ordnance survey map under the “I M” of  KIMMERIDGE. You can also see the tramway that runs from Manfield Shaft down to a pier on the shore. These are the salient features that would have spurred Andy on his quest. My own research has discovered that the pier the tramway ran to was destroyed twice in big storms. One was built of iron, the other stone. It is a third, different stone pier that is marked on this map.

This late 1880’s  map of the area, shows Cuddle and the tramway

Geology is a complex thing, but basically, the underlying rocks of the area, known as “Kimmeridge clay” contains bands of bituminous shale, or shale oil. The strata comes up to the surface of the earth here in the Southwest of England, before diving down and reappearing in North East Lincolnshire, where the foundations of the Humber Bridge were sunk into it. The rock strata then dives down again to emerge a third time as the North Sea oil fields. 

As we know, these rocks contain oil, and the shale from here was used as far back as the 1600’s providing fire for glassmaking, and even further back in Roman times when they used the shale to boil seawater in the production of salt. Iron Age amulets have even been found made of the material.

Serious working of the shale appears to have begun in the mid 1800’s. The shale oil was used to make products like varnish, pitch, naphtha, and dyes. The first tramway was built in 1848 and this is when the first adits were bored into the cliff faces. In some places works buildings appeared on the wave cut platforms on the cliff face. The most noted being that at a place called Clavell’s Hard. 

The adit and works at Clavell’s Hard in the 1890’s

That location certainly gives you ideas for a very spectacular model railway doesn’t it? 

Many companies tried to mine the shale as a profitable business, but all of them failed. 

The Mansfield mine shaft was sunk in 1883 and the tramway extended. Though I can find no information to suggest it was anything other than a horse worked line. The mine reached its maximum extent of 5,000 feet of tunnel in 1890 and things must have looked good. But before the end of the decade oil shale mining had ceased.

A survey in 1918 determined that the thinness of the seams and the high sulphur content of the shale meant that mining was always unprofitable and the owners were really on a hiding to nothing. 

The oil is there though, and should be able to be reached if the market conditions make it profitable. In fact, there has been a “nodding donkey” pump in the area tapped into the oil reservoirs since 1959.

It’s unlikely that shale oil mining will ever return to the area, but it has already had a fascinating history. 

What is Cuddle?

Back in the far off days at the turn of the century, when Y2K fears had subsided. There was a fledgeling model railway scale called Gn15.
As most of you know, it uses OO/HO scale track with G scale to model minimum gauge railways in the 15” gauge range, as popularized by the works of Sir Arthur Heywood and railways like the Ravenglass and Eskdale and Romney, Hythe, and Dymchurch. One of the attractions for modellers was that industrial type model trains would negotiate 6” radius curves (and tighter), as a matter of course. This was perfectly illustrated in the late Carl Arendt’s now legendary Squarefoot Estate Railway. Indeed, the popularity of Gn15 and Micro layouts went hand in hand for quite some time. There were some wonderful ideas produced. Some made it to construction and operation, some didn’t.
That is where Cuddle comes in. It was the brainchild of one Andy Anderson, who is sadly no longer with us. He had discovered the shale oil industry in Dorset, become fascinated with it, and decided to build a model railway inspired by the shale oil production process.
What was special about Andy’s concept was that the whole operation was distilled down onto one yard of straight track. No points or sidings. He produced an inspiring sketch and later a mock up to prove his point. It was a well thought out concept and I was rather taken with the idea.

Andy’s original sketch

The later mock up

Sadly, Andy passed away before he had a chance to build the layout, and it remained a sketch on the Micro Layouts website for many years. Then, while riding my trainer bike in the garage the other day, I spied an old shelf in the corner left from the builders remodeling work. For some reason I immediately thought of fitting Cuddle on it. I checked the shelf, it looked pretty solid and is actually 4’ x 11”. That extra foot gives me a little more wiggle room to fit things in, as I feel Andy’s mock up looks a bit cramped and I like having some space on my layouts for a little more scenic development.
So, that’s the plan. To bring Cuddle to life. I hope to keep my version essentially as Andy had envisioned his concept. The retort house with the clock tower for example, that has to stay. As does the train having to pass through the loading bay to get to the engine house. I’m not sold on his original idea of loading barrels of oil onto a boat. I may do something different. We’ll see where the journey takes us.
Thanks for the idea Andy.