Route 551 – The Newcastle Greenway – Video Guide

In this video we are cycling the old Stoke to Market Drayton railway line from Newcastle under Lyme to Silverdale which is now the Newcastle greenway, route 551 of the national cycle network. We pass Brampton sidings, Silverdale station and explore Silverdale tunnel along the way.

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hello and thank you for joining me today we’re in North Staffordshire today at the land of the oak cake and we’re going to be following the Newcastle Greenway from Newcastle under limetown Center out here to [Music] Silverdale I’m starting today’s Journey just north of Newcastle under limetown Center just off Queen Street at a place called station walks this isn’t officially on the national cycle network but as you can see it links up nicely with route 551 from here we’re heading west out on Route 551 out towards an area called Silverdale a relatively short way about 2.6 mi in total let’s get started and head down station walks now the fact that this is called station walks immediately gives away that this was actually an Old Railway line and we are going to be following the root of that on today’s Journey this first part of the ride is actually at the top of the embankment but you can ride down the hill here as you can see down to where the actual track bed used to be and if you look behind us we can see the bridge which the railway used to run over under the main road it has been filled in quite substantially but there is still a route under there and if we turn around you can quite clearly see the route of this cutting carrying on there towards the West I’m going to head out of the cutting and follow the tarmat path at the top here which takes us to the National cycle Network part of this route which we’ll follow for the rest of this video out towards Silverdale we joined the National cycle Network at the bottom of this hill on a road called Brampton sidings which obviously gives away what this area used to be before there was a road here still quite a bit of Industry on this road which I’m assuming was always the case and the reason for the sidings being here in the first place the path at the side of the road is actually a shared path so we can use this instead of cycling down the road and at the end of this we head into a small Alleyway which takes us past this industrial unit on the right after passing through one of these silly Gates which keeps out the less abled people we head down and under the a34 under this bridge which doesn’t look like an original Bridge uh but nonetheless follows the route of the Old Railway yeah after passing under the a34 this route really becomes quite a pleasant place to cycle changing in character and opening up you can really see that this was an Old Railway line as we cycle down this section and this is the type of cycling you can expect for the rest of this route towards Silverdale the light that we’re cycling along is the old Stoke to Market dayon Line This was built between 1850 and 1870 the line originally spit off from the main line just north of stoon Trent station it headed towards Newcastle through two tunnels pass Newcastle towards Silverdale where again it passed through another two tunnels before making its way across the West Coast Mainline and finally onto Market Drayton it entered Market Drayton just where the Aldi is there today passenger trains were cut down in 1956 and only ran from Stoke to Silverdale and in 1964 the whole line was closed to passenger traffic a victim of the infamous Dr beaching Freight traffic was always much busier than passenger traffic on this line and it was actually in use in Parts all the way up until 1998 for Freight traffic being used by the apedale and Silverdale ceries giving it the nickname the mineral line we pass under nutton Lane Church Lane and then make our way past nut and Quarry before reaching St Luke’s Church at Silverdale this church opened in 1853 and acted as a place of worship for many of the workers that worked at Silverdale cery which was directly opposite this church the cery closed in 1998 and now has houses and a country park on the former site of it a little further along the Route we find Silverdale station or what remains of it with these platforms being restored and cleared in 2009 passenger traffic here ceased in 1964 but Freight traffic went on right to the end in 1998 with it being used by the Silverdale cery as a loading area for the trains just after silver station the route comes to an end the cycle path starts to Bear to the right and up the side of the embankment taken us away from the original route of the Railway we have now cycled the massive 2.6 mies from Newcastle underl Center here to Silverdale and the route ends in a rather nondescript area but before we finish this video I’m going to do a little bit more exploring along the original route of the track instead of bearing right and going up the side of the embankment we can carry on along the cutting the original route of the way here although I really did need a pair of Wellies at this point because it was extremely muddy and there was a lot of water logged ground here if you enjoying this video please do subscribe to the channel to keep the wheels turning it really does make these muddy walks worth it after battling through the mud for about 200 m i did eventually reach the entrance of the tunnel this is the third tunnel on the line as it makes its way from Stoke to Market Drayton the tunnel is just over 600 M long with a ventilation shaft about halfway way down strangely the security gates of this tunnel were wide open I was able to put my head in and take some shots of inside of the tunnel now from Reading around on the internet it does look like it’s possible to walk all the way through this tunnel and out the other end I’m not sure I’d advis that as I wouldn’t be sure on the state of the tunnel and its uh safety uh but interesting to see inside and to see that the track is actually in place in there and that’s it for today’s ride thank you very much for watching please again do subscribe if you’ve enjoyed the video it really does help keep the wheels of the channel turning thanks again for watching and safe [Music] cycling