The Eaton Hall Railway was an early gauge minimum gauge estate railway built in 1896 at Eaton Hall in Cheshire. The line, which connected the Grosvenor estate with sidings at on the GWR Shrewsbury to Chester Line about away, opened in 1896. It was built for the Duke of Westminster by Sir Arthur Percival Heywood, who had pioneered the use of gauge with his Duffield Bank Railway at his house at Duffield, Derbyshire in 1874. The narrow gauge railway, which had about , was used mainly to bring deliveries of fuel to Eaton Hall. It had a branch to the estate brickworks at Cuckoo's Nest, Pulford. Other supplies were also transported to the main house and it sometimes carried passengers. The line closed in 1946 and was removed a year later. In 1994 a garden railway was installed at Eaton Hall; it is open when the estate is open to the public. Construction The line was built on a surveyed course that followed the main driveway, across parkland, fields, and across two public highways. Across the Grosvenor estate, the railway was built to be as unobtrusive as possible by being laid level with the ground with a central drainage pipe beneath; however after leaving the park the line was embanked. Neither was the line fenced - where it crossed between fields it was carried on girders over a deep ditch to prevent cattle straying. Its used red furnace cinder for ballast which was deep and wide. The track was steel flat-bottomed rail of , attached by spring clips to cast iron sleepers, long and wide, spaced at centres. Pointwork was prepared at the workshop in Duffield (for which Heywood charged £7/15s/0d each ()), and carried to site. The maximum gradient was 1 in 70 (1.43%), Eaton Hall being above the sidings at Balderton. Bridges over one or two streams, the longest being , but it crossed roadways on the level, at one point the main Wrexham to Chester road. Although Lord Heywood had obtained wayleave, it could only be a temporary arrangement because the Chester Corporation was not able to enter into a permanent agreement with a private railway. Heywood therefore campaigned for a clause in the proposed Light Railway Bill which would allow permission for public road crossings to be granted in perpetuity. The railway opened in 1896. The line included a branch to the brick store and estate