58 hours 58 hours in the tunnel
already this isn't good
quite possibly the most terrifying leat you've ever seen in your life
bizarrely swam for it as you said
hi my name is paul and i'm rebecca we make videos about old abandoned railways canals
tunnels routes, today happens to be an old abandoned tunnel or two on the
hereford to gloucester canal this video is also sponsored by the good people at NORD,
more on their deal they have an offer for you today a bit later in the video but for
the meantime join us on what is a rather strange leat heading down to a rather scary canal tunnel.
yeah oh my god we love tunnels yes yes we do we do we do recently we visited the herefordshire and
gloucestershire canal now it's part abandoned part restored and there's a wonderful team of people
doing just that and they're doing a wonderful job and we made a video about it
you can walk in one of these corners one of the corners we didn't include in that video
the tunnels tunnels because we wanted to make this video about the tunnel separately because they're
wonderful they're evocative they are quite scary in some places so first of all you join us on the
first tunnel of the day the southernmost time on the first section of the canal
oxford hall tunnel standing at 2192 yards long now because we filmed this over the course of
a weekend well you join me this time on my own um but you'll catch up with rebecca and
i at the northern portal so first job is to have a look at the southern portal of this
immensely long canal tunnel i've got a stick which i think i may need for safety reasons
so as this tunnel was built a lot earlier the issue we've got
is there was no towpath it just disappears this is this is already a problem there is
no towpath i appear to be stood in mud already this isn't good um i can't even see the tunnel yet
and i'm already stood in mud um so this is i wanted to find a different way this isn't good
okay southern portal aborted absolutely no way up there unless you've got a strong
pair of waders and a strong mindset as well to go wading up a disused canal which could be
potentially three feet deep in silt and a few feet deep in water now i'll let you into a quick secret
um there is a video online by a chap called parkinson and he has gone up there and the title
of the video which was dedicated to just doing that was do not do this so what
is the other end of the 2000 yard tunnel portal looking like today let's go and have a look
so failed southern portal let's head that 2000 yards north to see if we can find the northern
portal now as we head in that direction it's probably worth noting that my son's favourite
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into the trees above the northern portal and already we've come to some masonry which we
presume again is for the the feed of the leat that we found there that goes down into the canal
and there's a steep drop down i feel like we're going to find something quite positive here
look at that that is beautiful isn't it
so we're just about in the northern portal now and you can see me climbing down the hill to try
and reach it all good we're going to see what's happening there now when we research these videos
we try and look at our old newspapers a british newspaper archive i think it's cool just to see
if there's any quirky stories now rebecca did that on this occasion i did i found two about
the same tunnel within a week of each other when you have a uh let's call it a um a single narrow
boat tunnel very very thin to nine feet wide you can obviously only get one boat passing at the
same time so you're only allowed in each portal at specific times so boats didn't meet in the middle
however this first particular time um they were a little bit stubborn they both went in at the
same time and neither of them wanted to budge it was reported that they were stuck in there for 12
hours now that does sound bad it does sound amazing so let's just clarify one boat has gone
in from each end of the tunnel yeah they've met in the middle so around about a thousand yards a
kilometer from either end and neither in the given way because they had to leg in these tunnels right
so yeah upside down legging and would you want to leg two hours three hours backwards the way
you come because you've met in the middle and the other problem was other boats were coming
in behind both of them but a week later another article was produced retracting the 12 hours
saying nope i'm sorry we got it wrong it was 58 hours which is mad 58 hours in a tunnel so
there's a million questions how did they survive i presume they had supplies because they were on
a longer journey yeah they must do because they were on the canals anyway but yeah it was just
a day two and a half days in a tunnel they were effectively trapped what a fascinating story so
i'm now nearly at the bottom of the huge cutting there's some really weird stuff going on here with
it with a channel going around the back of it let's see what we can find here first issue is
the tunnel portal i don't know where it is it should be here
but i can't see it canals down there so it must be by right down there
i must be stood on top of the portal very strange
yeah this one is easy to get down so we go down here first
help me out good people help me out i cannot find the portal this is the craziest thing um
we're not we're not much higher than the actual um where the canal would have been down there
so we are maybe two feet above canal level and i've got in front of me here a brick-faced uh
wall a wall a few bricks deep no sign of an arch over here um some brick on the floor which looks
like it's bricked in an arch shape so that would indicate that maybe it's falling down so maybe
the portal was through that way somewhere but that doesn't it doesn't look right
it's not adding up and i don't understand okay let's have a quick look up this elite
i feel like this leaked would have been a lot thinner obviously the sides have fallen down
and come and fed into the canal beside the portal but where exactly the portal was i don't know
more brick work here again indicating the surround of the face the portal face
of the tunnel i think we're stood on top of the portal right now that is the case bit dangerous
so that concludes the on the ground search for the tunnel
there's a lot going on here there's a lot of random brick work which i assume elites heading
down to the tunnel but i can't quite figure out this one as it was could do us in some pictures
some documentation about what it actually did look like onwards to the next tunnel ashperton
tunnel number two for the day is called ashperton
fascinating story of this this is built in the second half of the the canals history
but it's well worth having a look at that portal it is quite scary because
it's full of water basically
this is next to a house is it not yes it is not on public land so it is not for the public to just
tip up and look at whenever they want to it's in somebody's house at the bottom of their garden but
suffice to say it was built by uh stephen ballard he was obviously the contractor at the time
he built that house there that you can see from the road to live there essentially and help build
the tunnel quickly keep an eye on it basically yeah but now obviously it's a private wedding
so please don't go there without sort of any any permissions in place because it's a private
garden the guy in the um the house lovely chap and obviously the trust guide that's down there now
you'll also not want to go and see this tunnel for reasons you'll see when we get to the bottom right
you can see the portal which is this fascinating um serrated edge oh goodness so we're we're
actually standing in the canal now but this is obviously the stuff's come down and it's just
filled it down that's crazy somebody must have put that in because that's right in the middle
of the canal yeah basically wow what a little bit of landscape this is crazy isn't it amazing
so as you'll have seen by the pictures and by the film there it's quite treacherous that's probably
about eight or nine feet deep in water held by a dam half a mile down the canal which can be
removed and will be removed when the canal needs uh restoring at that section there is an article
on one of the websites i think 28 days later i'll put a link again in the description below of a
chap i won't pronounce his name but let's say his first name bertie who went through it completely
mad took some pictures along the way have a look at that article just insane he went through it
with his neck just above the water line not knowing what was down below and beneath quite
staggering don't do that don't don't do any of this because it's so dangerous we were still on
the ledge where we were told it was very safe we took some pictures and walked back up the
embankment don't go down there don't go and see it have a look online because you'll get some
much better pictures in a view than you ever will by actually going down to yourself very dangerous
so a lot of these tony were original steps these steps were completely covered
okay but they're certainly of a period because they're very well worn aren't they
on to the final tunnel oh actually before we go on to final tunnel a quick look at the
northern portal not a lot to see there but here's a couple of pictures from from our view from above
so that was ashperton tunnel absolutely fascinating absolutely terrifying in so many
different ways one more tunnel to go which is in hereford tunnel number three tunnel number three
well it turns out that half of this tunnel has been in filled it's under part of the town and the
portal that you could still see if you were up for a bit of trespassing is completely blocked over
anyway so there's absolutely no gain whatsoever we have got some pictures which you could be looking
at now from the trust so have a look at these and enjoy it for what it is this has been a quite an
adventure the whole hereford and Gloucestershire canal adventure has been an amazing one for us
you can go and visit the trust in their website you can get involved you can volunteer and you
can do all the good things right yes makes us feel good and warm and fuzzy inside yes
and of course a big thanks to nordvpn for sponsoring this video and making
it possible yep check out the link in our doobly-doo below for their special offer
and from rebecca and only uh big thanks for watching and we'll see you this time next week
you