The original Great Central Railway was the last main line to be built in England. The new railway was superbly engineered to permit running at high speed, and was built with clearances sufficient to accommodate the slightly larger carriages and wagons used on the Continent. There would be few curves, no roads were to be crossed on the level and gradients would be minimised by putting the railway in cuttings and on embankments. Construction was clearly going to be a considerable undertaking.
The earliest railways had been built entirely by manual labour. By the end of the 19th century, engineers could take advantage of steam-powered mechanical excavators to form the massive earthworks. But the nature of the project meant that as the new railway was driven through the Leicestershire countryside it was still necessary, as it had been 50 years earlier, to employ armies of hired workers who lived in temporary camps near to the line.
The tobacco pipe is hand-carved in a dark wood and it was found 4 feet down beneath ballast near Rothley. It was smoked and enjoyed by one of those navvies, and it is most likely that he would have carved it himself. At some point it must have been dropped, perhaps accidentally, perhaps when carrying out some difficult or particularly strenuous operation, and it became buried in the earthworks.
