Backbarrow farmer David Dickinson has kindly allowed me to display two images in his possession of the now defunct Black Beck Gunpowder Works tramway bridge. It was a horse-drawn tramway that led from the works near Bouth across the River Leven and along the shore to a siding alongside the Plumpton to Lakeside Branch line. The branch line was opened in 1869, nine years after the gunpowder works started, so it is reasonable to assume the tramway dates from roughly 1869. A series of disastrous explosions and deaths saw the closure of Black Beck in 1928 and led to the decline of the tramway. The former tramway route is now a footpath from Black Beck Caravan site to the Rusland Pool Hotel on the main Barrow-Kendal road.
