Bridgnorth Cliff Railway boss discovers family connections at meeting of cable car owners
The bosses of Bridgnorth's most famous attraction have attended a meeting of fellow Cliff Railway owners – and discovered several family connections with their fellow funicular and cable car owners.
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The directors of Bridgnorth Cliff Railway, Malvern Tipping and his mother Eileen Tipping, were joined by other members of the Heritage Railway Association’s Cableways Group at the Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway last week.
The Heritage Railway Association’s Cableways Group discussed updates to the industry and met with the Health & Safety Executive.
“We discussed the latest safety concerns and updates with respect to funiculars. Those meetings are always very productive and enable us to update our safety measures,” said Mr Tipping.
However, he said that the meeting also uncovered several family connections among the owners of the nation's cable car and funicular railway companies.
He said the Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway was founded by Bob Jones and engineered by his cousin, Sir George Croydon Marks – a cousin of the grandfather of Eileen Tipping, Malvern's mother, who is now aged 96.
“The largest shareholder of Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway is Martin Slader, an accountant who lives in Cumbria and who is a great-grandson of Bob Jones and a distant cousin of the Tipping family,” Malvern Tipping said.
He added that Rupert Pugh, whose family own the Heights of Abraham cable-car in Matlock, Derbyshire, was through marriage the niece of Mr Tipping's first cousin, Philip Sutton.
The 130-year-old Bridgnorth Cliff Railway reopened in March this year after it was put out of action for 14 months when a damaged retaining wall was discovered to pose a health and safety risk in December 2022.
