Great Western Coffee Shop

In 1886 it was reported that:

Powers have been obtained to construct a tunnel from a point midway between Brockenhurst and Lymington on the London and South-Western Railway beneath the Solent to the Newport and Freshwater Railway on the Island. The tunnel will be about two miles long, and will enable the journey from London to Freshwater, Newport,
 Ventnor and other parts of the Island to be made without change of any kind .

Such optimism, though still flourishing in 1901, proved unfounded and the tunnel was not built, to the great loss of the Island’s quarrying and brick-making industries. However the quantities of ballast required for laying and maintaining the Island’s railway tracks meant that commercial quarrying was increasingly becoming a viable proposition. Though granite and limestone chippings were preferred for ballast, chalk was taken from Ashey quarry for the Ryde and Newport railway and the Pan Down chalk pit also had a railway siding, as did the Wellow, Ningwood, Gunville, and Sandown brickyards.