i was recently partaking in my favourite pastime which is just looking at old
maps in particular ones of whiltshire and something rather curious occurred to me.
Just to my north just there is a historic market town of caution
just to myself right there is the gwr line before it went into the box tunnel
now Corsham is one of four towns in whiltshire they begin with the letter c
but it is the odd one out sort of we'll come to that shortly but first of all a big
thanks to surf shark who are sponsoring today's video more on that at the end
this is Cricklade and is a second town we'll visit today beginning with c in the county of whiltshire
now if you were here anytime in the early 1800s you'd have had the joy of seeing canal boats
pass through here those boats travelled along a branch of the wilts and barks canal now the
wilts and barks canal was built between 1796 and 1810 and it connected the kennet and Avon canal
down at semington right out through swindon up to abingdon where it joined the thames
like all good routes the wilts and berks had branches and one such
branch was one that went through the town of Cricklade and it joined swindon
with the thames and seven canal built between 1814 and 1819 it had a number of features aqueducts and
locks to get down from swindon but it did have one other feature as well.
A tunnel, now a quick look around here and you can find evidence of what would have
been the northern portal for this canal tunnel tunnel house sits just to the west
of this dip in the landscape which shows us where this portal would have been
nothing here other than this great big bush beyond which would have been the drop down
to the portal back under the camera south would have been the remainder of the tunnel now if i
head south i can guesstimate that the tunnel was about 150 yards long now i'm just walking
down the fiddle and i think if i cut down this alleyway just here the tunnel would have ended
to my right in the area of this person's garden so all the houses to the left there would have
had an abandoned tunnel or still have an abandoned tunnel underneath that garden
now you find me on the south western end of the wilts and barks canal
looking for yet another branch of that canal and yet another abandoned canal tunnel
this branch of the canal was used to serve chippenham and it used to bring imports such
as coal from somerset coal canal and beer from goodness knows where now in 1914 when
the canal was officially abandoned large parts were infilled and used as rubbish tips in fact
in a meeting in 1926 the council approved dumping on the site of chippenham wharf which now houses
the local bus station built in 1977. jump forward to 2006 and some redevelopment
work in this car park wood lane car park in chippenham was taking place and they found
according to a newspaper at the time we had no idea that we would find parts of the canal
including the intact tunnel just down there to my left by the breeze block wall they seemed
quite content with taking a few artifacts and then completely concreting it over forever
so the tunnel would have left the car parked just behind me there going underneath the
road the crossing here uh where i'm walking now this way for about 100 yards and come out on the
green area in front of me now and then headed south back onto the main wilts and barks canal
so we did say four towns and if you haven't worked out already calne also had a branch of the Wilts
and Berks canal and it also required a tunnel on that branch there's a newspaper article from 1799
suggesting that the tunnel for this branch just back there under the turnpike road was underway
now the northern portal has long since buried in the farmers field to the north i thought i'd
take a look on the south side because the tunnel entrance was right next to this turnpike road just
here i suspect is long since buried two but you never know what you find if you have a dig around
i thought i might find something i thought i might find some old masonry it's really
difficult to tell exactly where it was the the line of the canal comes in from the south there
went down into calm and it could well be the the marshy area just in front of me there
is actually in fact where the portal was
so here we are back in Corsham or at least the western portal of the box tunnel just ahead of
us and we did say it was the odd one out of the four towns that begin with c in wiltshire that's
because it didn't have a canal it didn't have an abandoned canal tunnel but perhaps it could lay
claim to the box tunnel built by gwr and brunel in the 1840s and more importantly all the myths and
the mysteries that surround that tunnel the secret entrances the the sidings within but that's not
the story for today that's a story for another day unlike today's sponsor surf shark which is a story
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