[Music] we think we think they've buried it look at this right Steve that is well
sketchy ah there we go look there's the top as you may have already guessed this week's video
is a tunnel video based on your uh Little Adventures with Steve last week yep so we
looked at the lemster no it's the lipster lipster lster canal lster and kington canal last week and
we saved the tunnels for a separate video this one right now there were four tunnels free planned but
four that we can discuss in this video and we're going to ask the same question that we asked in
last week's video have a look at this image from above courtesy of Google Maps somewhere here is
the southwestern portal to the southnett tunnel which was 1,250 y long can you see it as we zoom
in Steve and I looked for an hour and a half gave up and then walked back toward the car and pretty
much stumbled across it by accident we'll come to that in a second but first of all we just
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we really love readly it's great so onto the tunnels the four tunnels of the Leominster canal
the abandoned tunnels the the amazing sketching it the what I think he's getting a bit over excited
this is such a cool thing so there were four tunnels planned on this route now we're going to
use again Rail map online at the canal section to help us guide on this journey now Steve and I went
from the East to the West in that direction and the first tunnel you'll come across when you're
researching this is pensax bit of a strange name apparently in Welsh it translates to head of rock
Steve and I didn't visit pensax tunnel because it doesn't exist or at least that's what we thought
before both of us did a lot of research sort of around this and after after this it was planned
to be 3,850 yard long that would have been longer than sapperton Canal tunnel it would
have the longest long well I think until at least stage come along so over 2 miles long we assumed
it didn't exist however when you read some of the old newspapers and some of the reports turns out
that they built a portal they dug a portal out and they dug a heading of about 80 yards and a tunnel
about 60 yards they built about three or four construction shafts as well for this but they
stopped we come to the reason why they stopped shortly however pensax tunnel then may feature as
a video in its own right some point in the future if we go back up a different story yeah because
there's a whole load of old tramways around there all of which we'll come to very shortly right
we're thinking someone's really gone to a lot of effort to um block this off by a 6t fence unless
I don't know that's like a pheasant area so let's get back to southnett Tunnel this is the second
tunnel eastwards as you head along the canal now let's get back to that image from above can you
see it now Steve and I spent an hour and a half in the woods looking for the tunnel that's where we
assumed it was due to a number of sources doesn't appear on the old map so is really difficult to
tell so I've got maybe what 45 minutes worth of footage from those woods basically looking at
a bunch of trees I won't bore you with too much of that right we still haven't found it but I'm
already loving this little explore because this is very um I don't know it's like good old days
of hunting for stuff that you don't know where it is and you're trying to read the landscape
and uh work things out and we can't work it out suffice to say it wasn't actually in there even
though we thought it was right oh God we think we think they've buried it we think the tunnel
is buried cuz I think it should be there and it's not perfect line soggy under under foot I
think it's been buried so we headed back towards a car assuming that this tunnel had now been filled
in and uh completely gone for all to see wasn't the case we headed across the field and now have
a look on the image from above and you'll see if I zoom in just here well we almost stumbled
across this by accident so we headed down the embankment here to this South Eastern portal of
southnett tunnel 1,250 yards and we began to see how dangerous this really was bricks hanging from
the portal as if they were just held there boy well willpower willpower nothing else the the
actual Keystone in the middle there how that's still there I don't know this is incredibly
dangerous and we made sure that we didn't go underneath that sort of portal of the tunnel let
alone go inside now in 1979 Country Life Magazine ran a an article on this tunnel and they said that
a couple of navies were killed when the tunnel collapsed in 1796 that's a year after it was built
and potentially in use not completely sure that's true because General consensus said actually two
boaters were killed in this tunnel I don't think anyone's ever going to know but either way the
claps had crushed down on the boat or the Navies and they were still trapped there to this day that
makes it sound like they're still alive 230 years on not the case maybe they could be nobody knows
so basically at this stage in time the collapse of this tunnel meant that it would no longer be
connect connecting to where it was supposed to connect to which is southport on thames
didn't happen hence why pensax tunnel we already mentioned was probably not constructed or taken
any further John rennie was subsequently called in upon this collapse and uh please do an assessment
of this canal cuz Thomas dadford jr Engineering was questionable hence the collapse of this tunnel
the pictures that we can show you now from this tunnel it's probably maybe 100 yards in 150 yards
before the first collapse the walls themselves are Bing like nothing else we always thought the
sapperton was quite bad this is disastrous it's just a matter of time before the walls again go I
reckon you 100 150 yards before there's a collapse and I would imagine all the way along it, yard
length there's probably even more collapses the engineering really was questionable on to the next
tunnel so so we look at the second tunnel of the day which is newnham tunnel 300 or so yards long
yeah very short very short interesting it wasn't on the original plans because the original plans
said they needed three tunnels pensax southnett putnal we'll talk about those as we have already
done newnham isn't mentioned right try Googling newnham tunnel n e w h n m NM tunnel and there's
very little on it we know we're going to see something because we've seen pictures on the
internet we just walking along the side of the field and we've seen an embankment and
this embankment could well be side of the toe half of the canal the cut yeah 100% Steve look
at this that's a really good find because this is going to help us find the tunnel it's going
to help us find oh look at that we didn't know we were going to see this another gorgeous stretch
of this canal look at that really gorgeous stretch so this will help us find find the
portal portal it's probably not there anymore but this side of NM tunnel should be just down here
[Music]
somewhere there we go there's a site of the abandoned newnham tunnel Northern
portal North oh God Direction North Eastern portal right there and you can see nothing
so we thought this is how sketchy yeah this is how sketchy the information is on newnham
Tunnel because we assumed it's 330 yards but it's not because it's only 5050 yards
that way and right here in front of us is the bed of the canal leading into where would have
been the portal somewhere down here so we need to probably do a bit of digging here
Steve yeah ah there we go look there's the top that's in field quite some way then oh look at
that quite easily do a cutting here yeah so I wonder if this was an afterthought and a cut
and cover now Steve and I can see the tunnel you can have a look at this portal as we're
showing you now and it's only two bricks thick I don't think we're looking at the actual portal I
think it's claps maybe sort of 10 yards back in but it's only two bricks thick and it's
about maybe 150 yard long you did say it's not very much above it though didn't you as well
oh like 20 yards above it so that would help but you still need a lot of Earth and weight
above it to help with the AR yeah exactly there's also a um an interesting monitor in the tunnel so
when you look in you shine your torch in I'm assuming there may be as a bat monitor so we
didn't stick around too long because we realized it was probably a a hibernation
for bat so we moved on but nevertheless if you know anything about newnham tunnel why it was
built why it wasn't on the original plans we'd love to know cuz it still to this day remains a
[Music] mystery so pel tunnel not easy to get to now when we go and do some research on these
places before we go we often drop people an email the societies a Canal Trust there's a friend of
Leominster canal and you can go and visit their website in the link below they're not actively
looking to reinstate this canal they're just looking to look after it the aqueducts try and
get the best out of it for the Heritage um aspect which is brilliant pel tunnel they said to us do
not go anywhere near the southern portal of pel tunnel number one you've got an extremely um
aggressive farmer who likes to carry a Shotgun around and number two it's also up to its um
eyeballs in water so you couldn't even see it anyway and it's extremely dangerous Steve and I
had to walk about a mile to get to the northern portal o into sort of the parking these are all
sort of Country Roads you just can't just stop and leave your car um Steve yeah it pretty dark in it
it does I think we found a tunnel already yeah I know the light's going because we're um you know
nearly in October we probably will be in October by the time this is it this is like a look at
this I mean I've over I think I've over drama size that a little bit people but
these are that sort of thick Conifer I've L us up the Garden Path there St on we're
lost all right from the map we're above it I think we are above it yeah so we need
to head that way safely but we're outside now because we're slightly
off the beating track um but we think we're right above the canal and I can
see through there covered in cobwebs yeah oh look at that on top of it so this is
it wow easy find to be fair heading away hardly
noticed so pel tunnel was another criticism for John Rennie he seemed to like to criticize a lot
of canal building that we've seen in the past and we've come across nevertheless he said this
was pretty shocking engineering dadford jr himself said well this is purely because of
the geology it's extremely porous the water's coming through it's almost like um sand quick
sand and that sort of thing despite the fact it's not that deep so I don't know how much of
an excuse that was again you could almost do a cut and cover here I feel but he didn't and it
took them a few years to build this relatively short tunnel 330 yards now there's a few old
YouTube videos where there's some people that have gone through it I would wouldn't advise
that for a couple of different reasons number one there is now a collapse I think about 300
yard in so the other portal had you been able to get there well you've only got 30 yards plus
about 10t deep water this end not so bad you've maybe got about a foot deep in water however as
Steve and I found out to our um demise um Steve put his foot in some of the mud and lost a well
it's really really comp it's really really I didn't get on film it's really dangerous the
whole area the whole portal is so silty and saturated in water we don't know how deep it
is I put a stick in and you just not a safe area to go so again I wouldn't advise you do
you're not going to gain anything from it just enjoy what other people have done yeah I won't
be going back in a hurry to uh to have a look at that right for me and Steve and Rebecca at
home and of course the putnal northern portal which is sketchy as you can imagine thanks for
watching um we'll see you next time and a big thanks of course to readly this week's
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