I've drawn up this map with reference to Tonks' maps and also to evidence found when Andy & I visited the area in 2010. There were three main phases to the movement of ore by main line rail.

Firstly, a small pit was opened just north of Bridges 4 & 5 prior to 1884. Ore was tranported away via the East & West but how this was done is a mystery. The cutting is very deep here. Tonks has suggested that the narrow gauge tipper bodies were somehow lifted from their frames and sledged down the cutting to be loaded by hand into  main line trucks in a siding at a point between the two bridges. (Mystery A on map)

Secondly, an extensive narrow gauge system, later developed, unloaded tippers from a cable worked incline which crossed the E&WJR over the wooden bridge No 2 into standard gauge trucks on the Gayton Quarry main line. This line connected with the LNWR (West Coast main line) at Gayton Loop. There were extensive workings on either side of the SMJ over the  years by the Gayton Quarry,the Blisworth quarry linking up further east.  South of the double cable incline the narrow gauge was loco hauled with an engine shed near the incline, north of the incline it was horse worked. The Gayton Quarry standard gauge main line was loco worked, but later reverted to horse haulage!!!    Mystery B concerns Bridge 1A which crossed this line and whose pillars still remain and were photographed by Andy and myself in 2010. Was it a footbridge or did these pillars support a staithe like construction for unloading ore onto SMJR trains? It is known that the SMJR did at one time have a private siding variously described as Weldon's Siding or Blisworth Ironstone Siding on the up side of the SMJ roughly at this point and opposite the later R Thomas & Baldwin Blisworth Ironstone Sidings of LMS & BR days. This siding is not shown on any of Tonks' maps but he does mention a temporary link with the SMJR. Equally strangely he shows a photo of what appears to be Bridge 1A which he states was used for unloading narrow gauge tipplers into Gayton Quarry standard gauge line trucks. If the picture is indeed Bridge 1A then it is nowhere near any of the known narrow gauge lines nor the chutes from the inclined plain near Bridge 2. Further evidence that Bridge 1A might have been used to unload ore to the SMJR trains is provided by the fact that it was officially described as a tramway bridge and also by the narrow gauge tippler body Andy & I discovered not far from its location.

Thirdly, the much later Richard Thomas & Baldwin Blisworth Quarry's standard gauge steam worked line linked with the SMJ (LMS as it was then) at the well remembered Blisworth Ironstone exchange sidings as shown on the map. Their quarry was far to the south east near the old A43 by Rectory Farm.

                                                                                                               Dick Bodily