Memorial to workers who died building the Settle-Carlisle railway

A memorial is being created to remember some of the men who died building the Settle to Carlisle railway line almost 150 years ago.

Twenty five unmarked graves in a churchyard near Dent are believed to be those of workers and their families.

The vicar of the parish of Dent with Cowgill, Rev Peter Boyles, was so struck by the presence of the graves that he decided to find out more. The workers lived in a makeshift camp up in the hills for several years.

"They were involved in building the Risehill Tunnel between 1869 and 1875 and during that time they lived in extreme conditions, worked in extreme conditions, building the tunnel," says Rev. Boyles. "There were industrial accidents, there were outbreaks of disease."

It wasn't just the workers who died and ended up in the graveyard. Smaller graves show the presence of some of their children who also died while their parents were living in the area.

The lives of families working along the line have been dramatised in the ITV programme "Jericho". It shows the type of shanty towns they had to live in until the work was complete.

For the people working near Dent there was the added problem of working at a high altitude. At more than a thousand feet above sea level Dent is the highest railway station in England.

Their work brought about what's often described as England's most scenic railway line and now a memorial stone is being designed by letter-carver Pip Hall, who lives in Cowgill. It will commemorate the unnamed workers in the churchyard, known as navigators or navvies.

She says: "Every time I use the railway I feel more and more grateful for what they did and what they left for us. It's a most wonderful service connecting us in the middle of nowhere and I feel very glad to be part of the commemoration of what they've achieved."

The memorial should be in place in the summer, a permanent reminder of the human cost of building the spectacular railway line.