The tramway reopened and the end of May 2021 after the lifting of Covid restrictions and has run Sunday afternoons since then, with passenger figures slowly returning to pre-Covid numbers.
The Tramway was built to carry Victorian and Edwardian fun seekers up a rather steep slope to reach a massive fairground. This grew in the second half of the 1800’s and included some massive rides, some of them unique at the time. It is recorded that on one day alone 100,000 people visited the fairground and the Tramway could carry up to 15,000 passengers a day.
The builder of the Tramway, and two years later a Toboggan run at the fairground, was a local entrepreneur, Sam Wilson, with a number of other ventures to his credit.
The first fairground continued through WWI but from about 1900, with the large crowds walking along the short lane from the Tramway top station to the fairground, owners of the two or three houses they were passing, decided to create their own amusements and started tea rooms, swings and other attractions.
From just before 1900 Tom Hartley built his Japanese Gardens with a boating lake and famous landscaped gardens.
All signs of the fairgrounds have now gone, the site of the more recent one, built on for housing. Only the Tramway remains.
However, with its bottom station only a few yards from Roberts Park at the bottom of the UNESCO world heritage village of Saltaire and its top station a similar distance from the open spaces of Bracken Hall Green and Shipley Glen with a pub and tearooms, the Tramway is an historic link between the two.
Going back two hundred years the open moorland was a place for workers to get away from the industrial towns, to picnic, explore and enjoy the rocks and stream and walk and it remains so to the present day.
The Brackenhall Countryside Centre in Shipley Glen, no more than 10 minutes walk from the tramway top station, has outdoor activities and the history of the area going back 4000 years.
The tramway with its museum and information centre at the bottom station is open Sunday afternoons noon until 16.00h all year and in December Santa Specials are run with pre-booked tickets on line via our website.
Visit the Tramways website for more information – www.shipleyglentramway.co.uk
The Chairman and Kate Smith, daughter of the third owners of the Tramway who opened our new museum on 15th July 2017 and the new interior of the museum.
