The following contemporary account relating to the construction of the Settle - Carlisle railway appeared on page 3 (column 5) of the June 25th, 1870 edition of the Lancaster Guardian.
THE IMPORTANCE OF NAVVIES
Ingleton streets are kept alive nearly night and day by the rattling of wheels, the cracking of whips, and the shouts of men travelling with their loads of goods for the navvies at “Batty Wife Hole”. Tailors and drapers, shoemakers and grocers, bread-bakers and butchers, greengrocers and beer sellers, &c. may be seen carrying their wares to supply the varied and ever occurring wants of the men who are working on the Settle and Carlisle railway. Beer is an important item in the wants of navvies, and there is no lack of well filled beer barrels. Indeed beer is considered so necessary an article in the daily wants of navvies that at times it may be seen on its transmission route at three o’clock in the morning. One might, think that the navvies were the most important men in the neighbourhood for men and goods are coming from every quarter for their advantage. It is evident that tradesmen in almost every department are vieing [sic] with each other to make the most out of them.
Acknowledgements
The text quoted above was manually transcribed from a 35mm microfilm copy of the newspaper by Mark R. Harvey during a visit to Lancaster Library on July 10th, 2007.