i love premier Inns but i don't i don't love that, in the middle of the night when you
can't hear the tv because that's too loud right we're in shrewsbury woken up to a very lovely
view of shrewsbury but it has no bearing whatsoever on what we're doing today
we're all packed up we're ready to go
so if you have a look at the st pancreas shed which is like the station big iron girders
renovated in 1994 five or six or something and the big hotel on the front or what was the big midland
hotel if you have a look at that when using research into haddon tunnel on the midland railway
the one connected the monsell trail to the peak line you look at the original plans it's got the
thomas brothers on it who were railway contractors but it's also got william barlow as designers of
this tunnel haddon turner one kilometer long same people same person william barlow who
designed the iron big shed of pancreas did the haddon tunnel so we're gonna have a look at
with mr martin zero nonetheless railway and manchester historic uh royalty
royalty yep
so here we are on a trusty embankment in the middle of derbyshire a wet embankment
and a bank man that probably hasn't seen a rail since well 1968 and by the looks of the amount of
vegetation here it probably hasn't seen a lot of foot traffic either current debate is have
we come the right way which is probably a good question um we're on the railway embankment and uh
we've still got 600 meters or so to go before we get to the tunnel we're looking for um
anyway we pressed on bound for the tunnel and as you'll see there was a couple of surprises for us
as we reached the tunnel on the south side of the rail i thought i've been walking for a long time
but it's probably about 700 meters or so we've got what it looks like
maybe like a plate layers hut not absolutely sure of that but
over
okay that way
onwards to the main event and now it's worth recalling the name i mentioned
earlier in the car william henry barlow his name was indeed on the plans for this tunnel
employed as chief engineer for midland railway from 1844.
right so what we have ahead of us is the beautiful portal to haddon tunnel and next to us we have
another old plate layers up this one clearly looks like it was an original
it's pure masonry it's falling apart the seams i wouldn't go in that in a million years
so the midland railway want to head north and from 1860 parliamentary approval was given for a root
north but they had a pesky landowner to deal with namely the duke of rutland and his had an estate
the 15-mile extension from rowsley to buxton would give us the beautiful peak line but the
first obstacle immediately out of rowsley wasn't so much of geography but moreover the lack of
desire from the duke to have an unsightly train go through his grand estate so a seemingly pointless
tunnel was needed to bury the railway underneath the duke's estate and when i say pointless
you'll see what i mean shortly here is a view from above and the original plans here from
barlow was for two separate tunnels now the first tunnel would give you a hundred and twenty yard
then a short cutting and then another 900 yard tunnel all very straightforward one would assume
now when you enter the tunnel this doesn't really appear to be the case there is no
sign of a gap at 120 yards maybe there's some light further up ahead but not the
original plan so what exactly went wrong here a month before the tunnel was due to be finished
many clues can be gleamed by a paper written on its construction
it's the 12th of december 1861 and john allen writes that significant movement of clay
whilst tunnelling was enough to break 18 inch timbers crown bars that is some significant force
so all that long we've got these classic refuges like two or three man wide not very deep
and then all of a sudden we've got really obscure looking i mean that's a refuge or not is it
subsequently the tunnel design had to evolve
significantly and it would now be a complete tunnel one whole tunnel albeit with one
main center bored tunnel at 350 yards and cut and cover style tunnels built on either end
so let's step back to april 1861 six months before allen's paper and a shaft is sunk
in the midpoint of the main tunnel the cut and cover sections had pretty much
been dug out by this time and they gave the middle section that was to be bored
four headings so two from either side of the shaft and two from the cut
and cover ends it didn't take long thereafter to bore out the remainder of the tunnel
inspection of the tunnel much later on its period of life 1900 noted that there was movement of
some of the walling they also cited problems ventilation and that struck me a bit curious
but nevertheless it was deemed that opening a 33-foot box would solve
all the issues in one foul swoop what it has left us with though is two separate tunnels
in theory of course but perhaps more importantly rather than that
what a spectacular sight this gives us the light allows for some beautiful pictures here
so it appeared to us that this section now could be the board section of tunnel
we've already been through the first section which is clearly the cut and cover it had a lower arch
so we presume we are now entered the 350 yard middle section
some of the problems came though from the shallowness of the tunnel much of the side
wall and was unable to support the arch roof now from this picture by forgotten relics it
really highlights the need of why they then added buttresses on the south south west side of the
tunnel walling they become further exposed over time with erosion of this extremely shallow tunnel
whenever you research into tunnel construction in the 1800s ultimately you come back to the life of
the navi and the disregard for the life of the navi graham bukadok of forgotten relics has done
some extensive research into many tunnels but certainly this one in the haddon tunnel
and the lives of the navies that built it it seems families of navies moved around with
contractors and this was certainly the case in this instance so the thompson brothers that we
had mentioned before well the family the alfred william and his family his wife sarah and five of
their eight children lived in some huts and in the previous census they had been over in south wales
doing the same thing so presumably again following the contractors around earning their money
this was dangerous work and speaking of the money while they could earn up to three times as much as
a farm labourer for example so come the second of july 1861 well it was potentially like any other
danger perhaps at the forefront of alfred as he walked to work with his 15 year old son close by
they worked on the northern section of the tunnel the cut and cover section and on this day
while they did so was 15 others around 4 pm that day ultimately it was deemed by barlow that one of
the center props became loose and was knocked over possibly by unloading stone from one of the trucks
the roof collapsed beams came down frantic searching amongst the rubble got underway
for a couple of hours by 6 pm three men had been found to lost their life john millington age 40
this picture really depicts what happened that day and the devastation it was caused
nice yeah well we have done a lot of overlay for this video a lot
talking about the technical side of it but what we want to show you at the end of the tunnel
it's something that's a very different once again so just outside of here
you can see the water is now level with my head
wow and uh yeah it's leaking in all kinds of bits for that that breeze block wall
of concrete block wall was holding quite a few gallons of water there so we're going to step away
so that was hadden tunnel which was pretty fantastic we want to say a
big thanks to we're not sponsored but big thanks to works for sending us our
torches for today we'll put their link in the description below in that uh as they're not
sponsored these are their torches but we did want to sort of try them out for them and we
will be picking up a couple of these because he's great for sort of wide beam so yeah we'll um we'll
put a link in the description below for those so big thanks for that um also if we face this
way mine are big oh my god mine's doing a phone identifier mine's in a photo quick quick quick
there you go all right sorry i was going to say i was going to say thanks for joining us
today we're we're going to sign off here as well um thanks to liam as well for joining
us um yeah as always check out martin's channel because it's a wonderful thing full of historic
goodness and uh well yeah we'll see you next week and tell them what we're planning oh oh oh
we're planning all sorts we're playing all sorts in the coming months going off
i'm trying to get paul to come up to near me manchester and maybe do something fresh that
i haven't done before but depending on the timing when it can get up we might could do
a compilation of the places that i've been that my favorite places that you've never
seen and we could put that out for your viewers yeah how self-indulgent is that
we're no we're going for that because there's some good stuff yeah we think you'd enjoy it we'll make
the promise of within two months well yeah i mean summer's nice as well yeah true whatever whatever
you can make it anyway there you go take care thanks for watching paul and rebecca lightweight
you