oh there it is look at that and look at the tunnel there's an actual tunnel
uh good morning everybody welcome to another video my name is paul and i'm rebecca and this video has
been made possible by nordvpn so we'll come to the benefits nordvpn shortly and tell you why
we use it and how it benefits us plus give you a nice discount code to use in the description below
so you join us today on the Dorset and somerset canal a branch of the canal that was built
around about 230 years ago and we're on a stretch between colford and frome so
it was abandoned only about 10 years after being built because basically they've run out of money
so you join us at colford where in search for two abandoned tunnels on that stretch of the canal
the dorset and somerset canal was never built but an eight mile branch of the canal was it was quite
a surprise to us how much remained along this stretch so in this video we're exploring from
colford towards frome in deepest summerset the real we are following today is taken from this
map which is from a very helpful chap called derek i'll add his details in the links below
point number five to six on the map marks where we are situated now point number five in particular
was a short tunnel which went under the road here unfortunately it's blocked and not accessible to
the public but this picture from tony coma shows you in quite good detail how they built tunnels
in around 1796. the national library of scotland have a map which is probably the best one i can
find to show you the exact alignment of the tunnel and how it went underneath the road here
so you join us on foot now as we head just across the valley
looking for any remains of the second tunnel that went underneath the village of highbury
so if you can see just across the valley there there's the methodist church now underneath the
methodist church is the tunnel we were talking about previously which was built and there are
photos online now the canal then weaved its way around the valley obviously staying at the
same control and it was about to go underneath this little village here this is called hybrid
which is just north of coleford and of course the canal having to stick to the contour had
no choice but to do or build another canal tunnel right underneath those houses there
or whatever houses were around in 1797. um so we're searching for the southern portal
yeah but we don't know where it would be but we do know where it would be um so around here somewhere
all right yeah again we're faced with a bit of mud uh interesting leg action but
we're pretty sure now we're in a little bit of a wooded bit at the bottom of those two fields
and we found what we think is the the cut the line here you can't really see much of it there because
that's sort of filled in but looking forward this way this is exactly the same as what we
found earlier rebecca so we're now back on the canal bed literally on the canal but aren't we
right so we just walk along here as far as we can until it's filled in um we have to go back up into
the field but at least to give us an idea of where the tunnel would have started so before we carry
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68 off of a two-year plan plus an additional four months free on top of that we found what
is probably the biggest dump or um junk pile there so the canal line below us here all the way back
through there this is a canal line and there heap of junk this looks like industrial junk doesn't it
so you want to look for some junk that is a proper proper rubbish pile i'm guessing 50 60 years old
maybe look at some of the stuff and i'll barrel in there so whilst i try and climb up the side
of the massive junk heap let's have a brief look at this tunnel using the lidar image care of the
environment agency because at this point we still don't know if the tunnel existed the southern area
here clearly shows the east-west of the cut of the canal and we assume the junk heap covers it as it
turns north and of course covers any portal that might have been dug out the northern end of where
the tunnel should have been or the portal however tells a completely different story present day
it's a farm and therefore no evidence exists on the lidar or even the current maps however if we
look on the left hand side of the 1900s maps there was clearly a cutting and a portal marked there
well things we've learned today so down there was the canal and what we're still on now is an old
dump so literally this whole section here up to the houses is filled in and it's a dump um what
kind of dump we don't know kind of industrial iron masonry you name it but underneath here somewhere
if they did build a tunnel if they did build the portals if they did start digging a tool
underneath here is where it turned from that direction turned into there
and under the houses so it would have been somewhere within the next 30 40 yards here
as we headed away from vobster bridge we began to talk again about some of the people and the parts
they played in building this canal including local man william bennett so william bennett
had previous form and he had formed the summerset coal canal didn't work out as
well as he had wanted in fact he was sacked he underestimated the cost of building that canal
and the inclines and the casson locks etc so this time around he spoke with a local
someone said founder um james fussell james fussell owned the mouse work now james fossil
had come up with this wonderful invention it was a chain basically and it wasn't like the normal
chain you'd see on um like an anchor of a boat or a thick chains it was a chain that was sprocketed
and it almost like a bike chain and he patented this and he managed to use this
in a what he called a balance lock now we're not going to talk about the balance lock in
this episode because we're going to do as a separate video because we've got permission
to be on the um the site where the fossils locks were and where they've recently been excavated
um but instead of that we're now looking at a couple more bridges along this way
so we're now at um conduit bridge and this is the pathway um which is cycle running
24 i think i think that's what it said um we've got the we're on the on the route of the
the Bristol and north summerset railway and actually there's a lot of track still to see
if you ever want to come that way so we were talking about James fussell and his wonderful
chain invention the sprocketed chain which gave rise to the balance locks the fossils lock
which was a patent design and really on the face it looks like a great engineering concept it never
came to fruition other than they did build the locks they did build them because they recently
excavated but it never came to fruition because the canal ran out of money which is a real shame
because the whole concept of this canal in my mind is a really good one like the balance locks
the whole canal connecting the English channel up to the river seven and the ports Bristol and
the canals of the kennedy naval nothing locks or bridge 177 is a great concept so it run out
of money because apparently uh the Napoleonic wars now it's always said that a war really does put a
strain on a country in its finances and economics but because of the amount they were spending
apparently on the Napoleonic wars this has really devalued or gave rise to inflation on the the
money at the time and therefore it devalued the shareholders value and investment in the canal
so we're now walking alongside the mells river and we're probably i'm not exactly sure where but
we're probably very close to where james fussell had his his engineering workshop um and built
his tools and the bits and pieces and probably came up with his his fantastic chain patented uh
idea and what we're trying to find is mercury bridge but it's actually an aqueduct in its truest
sense it carried water over the males river um and we don't think it's too far along this pathway
right we've been walking alongside this river for quite a waste it's got to be here somewhere
we've been told there is oh look rebecca oh there it is look at that and look at the tunnel
there's an actual tunnel oh cool proper keystone and everything yeah it's like a pathway for people
oh it's blocked
this side of the tunnel the passengers are they about five feet long maybe six feet at the most
um so there must be the other side the same there's a wall there
yeah i wanted the other side of the aqueduct there's another tunnel all right it's kind of look
this is the aqueduct now so this would have carried the water round round that way down there
and there's no there's only one side there there's a facing wall there masonry which we've
already seen but there's nothing this side so the mason has all been removed this i would assume
but if there is another side to this and there is another tunnel underneath it must be down
here could be down there rebecca yes look all right so um should we go in, go on then.
oh that goes much further back
you're right uh yeah i don't know what you did because i wasn't looking oh okay it's
really standing there it's really slipping okay
look at the symbol look i mean what is that seven 1798 that looks like which is like the
year it was built 1797.98 that you've got bh you've got you zl were these what were they
that's the alien
i'll tell you what's cool is this pattern from my tool well what treat this is this is as well
built a tunnel as we've seen certainly for its age so this was built 1798 late 1700s i can't
recall seeing the tunnel from that early being so well built with it's it's masonry
um lined very very well constructed in terms of the i call it that brickwork but obviously
it's masonry blocks um and as we've seen we've seen some symbols just back there which probably
are symbols maybe from the actual stone masons themselves and if they did take pride in it
goodness me they did because it's perfectly formed you've got the keystone line down the middle
and every single block is as good as you can in terms of its condition 220 years old
and it's as neat as you can imagine you know you struggle to build something like yourself
these days 220 years on what a great piece of architecture this is what a stunning find rebecca
i can't imagine the amount of stuff that you was going on here in the late 1700s probably obviously
a lot earlier than that but when the likes of james fussell and his father were working around
here and there their tool works their iron works and some of the things they were producing and
apparently shipping all around europe by all accounts one day we will do a video
from this very area because there's a load of old railways and tramways here and you can tell
you just look for a second just one second you look around here and you see other influences
of people um interacting with their landscape and look across the river there
and you see how they try to almost dam off this so whether they built like an
old mill here or something to generate i don't know movement or
i don't know but you can see quite clearly there's an embankment which is man-made stone
built there's stones all the way down the side of it so they control the water here so what
else there is here i don't know but that'll be in the the site of another video at some point soon
oh so from the from the banks of the river metals
um we bid you farewell we haven't done the whatcombe wall so we'll do it over there
the whatcombe wall which is the final part of the canal i think uh as close as froome
we've covered eight miles today for the abandoned dorset and somerset canal
really hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have it has been quite it's been a great day
um loads of bits that we wanted to get covered we got covered we met the lovely couple andrew
elizabeth thank you andrew elizabeth um yeah so for the banks of the river mills we will come
here again because there's another video needed to be done here right oh yeah empty to be done
there's freight to be done here lots of industrial architecture industrial bits and pieces to see
here and we know of so much but we um have more time to squeeze in today's video so like subscribe
make sure you do subscribe because a lot of you are like seventy percent sometimes don't subscribe
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