Publications
Building of the Balcombe Tunnel, 1838-1841, by Pat Millward, published 2000 in Sussex Industrial History (issue no. 30, article, pp.2-19, ISSN: 0263-5151) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16389/30] & The Keep [LIB/506528] Download PDF
Abstract:In 1825 John Rennie, son of a Scottish engineer who had worked on a projected canal from Croydon to Portsmouth, was employed by the Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Wilts and Somerset Railway company to search for a line between London and Brighton as the first section of a circuitous way to Portsmouth, Salisbury and the Bristol coalfields. He was to describe the development of his ideas before the House of Commons enquiry on 14 April 1836, saying that having examined a large area he had selected two possible routes. The first, surveyed for him by Charles Vignoles, was to traverse the North Downs by the Dorking Valley, go south by Horsham, use the Adur Valley to Shoreham and then run along the coast to Brighton. For the second he and Thomas Jago investigated lines south from London which, instead of avoiding the rugged land of the High Weald, would cross it to provide a shorter route but one with massive earthworks. From surveys over a wide area he proposed his Direct Line which, with amendments would eventually be built, but the then Sir John Rennie was to be sidelined in favour of John Urpeth Rastrick. Called Chief Engineers, it was Rastrick who was to build the line while Rennie acted only as consultant.