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1939 film of car driving Lakeland passes we struggle to ride over today
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maccruiskeenFull MemberPosted 4 years ago
Its a shame the Map Man episode about Bartholomew Road Maps isn’t on the iplayer anymore. Cyclsts from the CTC used to asses roads for their car-worthiness – so before someone threw that Austin up the hill the route would have been scouted by cyclists and the map would show the chances the car would have of making it.
It was TV gold just for seeing Nicholas Crane take on the Black Sail Pass with rod brakes
martinhutchFull MemberPosted 4 years agoGreat stuff! A bit of historical context might upset a few of the current pearl-clutchers moaning about 4x4s being out of character.
Can’t help thinking that the Lakes would be a much better, more special, place if all of the tarmac running into its heart were removed.
theotherjonvFull MemberPosted 4 years agothat’s mad, ‘only full throttle and and lowest gear will it see it up this bit’
bouncing the suspension it off its bumpers – marvellous!
maccruiskeenFull MemberPosted 4 years agomoaning about 4x4s being out of character.
I think the footage demonstrates they’re completely redundant 🙂
epicycloFull MemberPosted 4 years agoGreat little documentary. Fancy doing roads and tracks like that on its modern equivalent?
And why all old bikes were really gravelbikes.
Maybe we need the gravelcar. 🙂
But it’s a shame we’ve lost all those great tracks to tarmac and cars now. Look at the foot traffic on them even in the remote bits.
malgreyFree MemberPosted 4 years agoExcellent viewing.
Fair play to the drivers, 900cc and 24 hp, with ordinary looking tyres and rear wheel drive. leaf-spring suspension, over rough and loose passes. Guess it would be pretty light.
whitestoneFree MemberPosted 4 years agoInteresting to see that Garburn Pass, Walna Scar and much of the Borrowdale Bash were motorable. Shows how much erosion has taken place over the years. Also Blea Tarn, Wrynose and Hardknott were yet to be tarmacked.
Lakeland roads only began to be tarmacked during the 1930s, my mum remembered that the A590 to Ulverston was still gravel when she started at school there – if she got detention then she’d miss the bus and would have to walk home, all twelve miles of it 😳
There was talk at the time of tarmacking the track over Styhead Pass between Wasdale and Borrowdale rather than Hardknott but obviously they settled on the latter.
aPFree MemberPosted 4 years agoMy Uncle’s final driving test in 1944 was driving a Bedford MW over Hardknott Pass. Apparently some of the corners required 3 or 4 reverses to get round.
richardkennerleyFull MemberPosted 4 years agoLoved that. Gobsmacked a car could get up garburn road at the beginning, let alone the rest of it!
Would love to have seen some of the descents, how the hell did they get past the steepest, rockiest bit of the decent to Rosthwaite from Watlendath!? Would it really have been that much different?
hamishthecatFree MemberPosted 4 years agoYep, enjoyed that, plecid beauteh, water spleshes and all.
Brummy registration so factory car I assume (or rather, fectoreh). Wonder how many breakdowns they had.
thestabiliserFree MemberPosted 4 years agoThey’d have had to get horse and carts over them nevermind cars. They’d have been much better maintained than now.
CountZeroFull MemberPosted 4 years agoGreat film, really enjoyed that! Shows how capable those little cars were, pretty low geared, my ‘54 split-screen Minor would accelerate pretty well, (it had a 1300 A-series) but maxed out at 70. I had it flat out along Pendine Sands once, after I was past the rangers, and it couldn’t go faster than 70.
boggie62Free MemberPosted 4 years agoI always thought Hardknott and Wrynose were tarmaced in the 30’s but it must have been later. I have seen an old photo of steam rollers laying the first tarmac on Hardknott and there is a film somewhere of someone taking a steam roller over Hardknott in homage to the feat, maybe in the 90’s.
neilthewheelFull MemberPosted 4 years agoOutstanding find! Some great driving skills on show and now I want an Austin 8…
felltopFull MemberPosted 4 years agoIt was TV gold just for seeing Nicholas Crane take on the Black Sail Pass with rod brakes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078y2t
That’s a blast from the past, filmed in 2004! I was cast in the role of “Mountain Safety Expert” in that programme. I was supposed to give Nick Crane a hard time for being ill equipped. Nick helpfully removed his head torch from his bag so that I had something to pull him up on.
senorjFull MemberPosted 4 years agoMarvellous. Thanks very much for finding that.My jaw was on the floor for most of it.
Aces.mrmonkfingerFree MemberPosted 4 years agoAce.
Loving the 3 wheel corners on the first gravel track.
Guess it would be pretty light.
800kg, according to a couple of minutes of google. So not that light.
whitestoneFree MemberPosted 4 years ago@boggie62 – from wikipedia:
In 1936, the Cumberland Highways Committee considered, and rejected, a proposal to make the pass more accessible to motors by laying down a new road surface and making other improvements. However, during the Second World War the War Office used the area for tank training completely destroying the existing road surface. After the war the wartime damage was repaired and tarmacced. A decade after the local government had rejected opening the highway to vehicles, the war’s legacy had inadvertently created a direct motor route between Ambleside and Eskdale for the first time.
Wikipedia doesn’t note when Wrynose Pass was tarmacked but it was probably around the same time.
StirlingCrispinFull MemberPosted 4 years agoThe Nicholas Crane Map Man episode is on Daily Motion:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2f0lrr
The Contour Road books are fun. The original road atlas showing road gradients with notes on surface conditions. My first one is from 1890 with a chalk plate at the front for notes.
A book can be downloaded here: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL19366516M/The_Contour_road_book_of_England
mick_rFull MemberPosted 4 years agoInteresting to see how grassy Garburn was back then. Also note that it didn’t actually show it cresting or descending Garburn and lots of the other tricky bits on the other passes – maybe some artistic editing of what it actually managed?….
Saying that, the Lakeland VSCC trial manages to get up lots of gnarly stuff.
martinhutchFull MemberPosted 4 years agoAlso note that it didn’t actually show it cresting or descending Garburn and lots of the other tricky bits on the other passes – maybe some artistic editing of what it actually managed?….
It showed it getting up the hardest bit on the Troutbeck side of Garburn on the way back (plus the steep bit up from The Howe at Troutbeck), and the final shot was the top, plus we saw the hard bit at the foot of Walna, and the hard bit up from Watendlath. On the whole it seemed pretty capable.
It’s quite likely that some of the roughest bits now would have been far better maintained back then. Not sure how it could fit through the rock gap on the Coniston side of Walna, unless there was a bit of a work-around then.
slowoldmanFull MemberPosted 4 years agoIt’s quite likely that some of the roughest bits now would have been far better maintained back then.
Or simply not trashed by the passage of time/traffic.
mick_rFull MemberPosted 4 years agoFair enough – I didn’t watch as far as the return over Garburn.
I can certainly remember riding a slightly less rocky Garburn 30 years ago on a rigid bike with canti brakes.
globaltiFree MemberPosted 4 years agoLoved that film! The driver knows a thing or two about the importance of momentum. The car is of a smilar era and ladder chassis/live axle/leaf spring design to a series Land Rover except not 4WD, so no reason why it shouldn’t go anywhere a Landy can go in dry conditions with most of the weight on the driving wheels. Got nice narrow tyres as well for good ground pressure and grip.
wzzzzFree MemberPosted 4 years agoOr simply not trashed by the passage of time/traffic.
These roads would have been well trodden by packhorses and carts
I doubt there is more traffic now.
More likely they stopped being used when others were tarmaced and motorisation took over. And then they fell into disrepair as there was no pressing need to maintain.
Looks like a gravel biking oasis though!
teadrinkerFree MemberPosted 4 years agoThat was lovely, thanks so much for posting, really enjoyed that 🙂
ratadogFull MemberPosted 4 years agoThanks for posting. Spent a lot of time in the Lakes as a teenager and as a student gleefully took my first car, a 2CV6, over Kirkstone, The Struggle and the Hardknott. fascinating to see what they were like only thirty years before I first saw them.
The driver was obviously carefully chosen and if I have him right was a well known racing and rally driver with class wins in the 1950s at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia.
BunnyhopFull MemberPosted 4 years agoI absolutely enjoyed every moment of that.
To see that little car driving up and down tracks that I’ve tried to mtbike up is amazing.
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