Tyrwhitt’s Wharf on Roborough Down north of Plymouth is an important early example of a horse tramway building. It now lies on the edge of Yelverton Golf Course. It’s a single storey structure built of Dartmoor granite and retains evidence of functional features such as the tall entrances (now blocked up) at either end of the building to allow horses to enter and leave. It has a hipped, slate roof which is rather bowed in the centre, although the roof structure appears relatively modern. In the north corner is an iron and brick fireplace and chimney. There are several iron nails and niches to the walls and the truncated end of an iron pipe fixed to the south wall.
Tyrwhitt’s Wharf was built in 1823 for the stabling and refreshment of the horses used to operate the four-foot six-inch gauge Plymouth to Dartmoor Tramway. This early horse drawn railway was part of local MP Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt’s plan to improve the economy of the moorland. The idea was to bring in materials such as lime. sea sand, coal, and timber and even tea and sugar. Return trains would carry granite from quarries at King Tor and Dartmoor peat, as well as farm produce.
On July 2nd, 1819, Royal Assent was given to the first Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway Act. It authorised the construction of a line from Crabtree (now the site of the Marsh Mills flyover and supermarket) to Princetown. A year later a second Act authorised an extension to Sutton Pool and Cattewater. The line followed has many sharp bends as it followed the contours of the land towards Roborough Downs. There was even a 620-yard-long tunnel at Leigham.
The tramway opened on Friday September 26th, 1823, and was completed in 1827 and extended from Princetown on Dartmoor to Sutton Harbour in Plymouth, a distance of 25 and a half miles. By 1840 traffic had reduced considerably and in 1883 part of the tramway from Yelverton was redeveloped as the standard gauge Princetown Railway. The remainder went out of use by 1900 and most of the rails were removed in 1916 as the standard gauge GWR line from Tavistock to Plymouth took much of its trade.
The route of the horse-drawn tramway can still be traced in parts of the moorland landscape, and some of it is now used for recreation. Stretches of former track from the area north of the wharf to Yelverton (about a mile) retain granite setts (which served as railway sleepers), a granite milepost and the remains of a bridge. To the south on the edge of Yelverton golf course there appears to be part of a former railway cutting.
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