We're at Standedge Tunnel, this is the Eastern portal just there at Marsden.
It's three and a half miles long. It took two engineers two and a half thousand
navvies of which 50 of them died and it cost just under £124,000 back in the day
to build. It's weird because the renovations
cost over 5 million, there you go. It's one of four tunnels that run parallel to
the canal tunnel through to the other end near Diggle, the other three are
railway tunnels and one of them is still the main line for TransPennine Express
trains between Leeds and Manchester
I'm in one of the disused railway tunnels
here at Standedge. There's four tunnels altogether, three of them are railway
lines, two of them a single track railway tunnels, they're the ones that are
disused. There's the South tunnel first then the central tunnel which is this one,
you've got the canal tunnel just
slightly set down and then you've got the live railway tunnel just to the left
of that. That carries the main TransPennine Express trains from Leeds to Manchester
Let's go and have a look at an Adit.
Okay.... lets watch the cables
So this is the drainage that runs between the tunnels.
Just under there...
is the connecting tunnel from the north tunnel, so the water that runs into the
tunnels that comes under the old railways through this drainage ditch and
it goes out into the canal. Football? Who's been played football down here? [laughs]
so just under here we're in to the canal.
More drainage from the other side.
Now up there you can see some timber frames...
and some metal joists.
Lets go and have a look why.
So when the built the other railway tunnel,
the railway company built these bridges....
over the canal and that was so they could get all the spoil from the railway
tunnels as they were building them, and ship it out through the canal tunnel.
So here....
is the live railway line. I'm not going to get any closer....
because it is dangerous.
[Sound of a train coming]
It's hard to believe that there's four parallel tunnels running together,
interconnected by these corridors. 400 and odd feet above sea level below the Pennines
that have got layers of this brick built support. Imagine the hours, weeks, months
and years of hard work that went into just creating this and it's still here
hundreds of years later, it's absolutely amazing.
We're gonna go back up these steps....
and back out into the disused tunnel.
It is so dark.
If I just turn the lights off completely you can just see
the light at the end of the tunnel three miles away....
can you see that?
Some interesting facts for for you then.
The tunnel is...
that makes it...
canal tunnel in the UK.
The tunnel was supposed to open in 1799,
but things weren't going well for the engineer Benjamin Outram. First of all
they found out that one end of the tunnel here at Marsden was higher than the
other end at Diggle, it's not good when you want to build a canal is it? But then
there was all sorts of things going wrong there were having floods there was
water coming into the tunnel and part of the system collapsed here at Marsden.
So it really wasn't going all that well and he ended up resigning.
Thomas Telford came in and they got Thomas to advise on how to complete the tunnel.
First thinghe found is it wasn't even running level one was slightly left of the other and
that's why the tunnel now has got two bends in it.
Hundreds of feet below me is the canal and railway tunnels and this is one of
the ventilation shafts that rises up through the hill and bursts out of the top.
They use these for ventilation but they also use them to bring up all the
rock and spoil that they were digging out as they were creating the tunnels
down below.
I've just found this memorial right next to the ventilation shaft,
it's for the 7th Battalion of the Duke of Wellington Regiment from World War II
and I tell you what. What an honor, what a place to be memorialized.
The view from this is just stunning.
Back in the day this was a really busy place and up to 40 boats a day would be
coming in and out of the tunnel, because there's no towpath in there so no horses
to pull it along no steam or diesel engines back in the early eighteen
hundreds to get through that tunnel. So they used to leg it basically laying on
boards at the side of the boats or on top and pushing their way through with their legs,
sounds like too much hard work doesn't it?
It would take about an hour and half
to get an empty boat through there, but if it was full of cargo it
could be up to four hours.
When they're renovated the canal back between 1981 2001 they managed to save a
lot of the historical architecture around Standage. Just behind me is where
the lock keepers cottage used to be, it's now a cafe and the visitors centre used
to the warehouse for Standedge, used to store coal and wool and grain that they
used to carry between Huddersfield and Manchester.
208 years ago.... a boat called Lively Lady emerged from that portal there, first boat to
come through the tunnel. We're going the other way in about an hour as we've got
a few things to do on the boat we got to take the kayak off we've got to take the
cratches down make sure the navigation lights are off and the chimney cap is on.
Just preparation work before we get in there.
Not very big.
I hope we can get out unscathed.
Probably not
[Music playing]
To make sure that you can get through Standedge tunnel safely and manage to
squeeze through, the Canal on River Trust measure your boat before you go in.
The maximum width is six foot ten, maximum height above the water is six foot two
the maximum draft below the water that's how deep you sit in the water is three foot three,
so luckily Silver Fox measures up perfectly and we're just
about ready to go.
[Music playing]
Literally just a few yards to our right hand side is the double line railway
tunnel and when the built in the late 1800s the mining caused a lot of damage
to this tunnel, so the railway company had to cough up and they built these
brick supports alternately down the damaged sections of the canal, also known
as Jack archers and it fixed the damage that they did and it also strengthens
the tunnel from any movement in the hills
[Music playing]
You see these marks in the tunnel roof? They are the original drill marks from when
the tunnel was built using hand tools and dynamite. So to cut through the rock
you'd get two guys one holding this long metal bar with a sharp end on his
shoulder and it slowly twist it as his mate hammers the other end as hard as he can
and once they'd drilled the hole deep enough to get a stick of dynamite in
that light the fuse everybody runs away, it blows a section of the rock down and
that was taken away using horse gins, they'd come back and do it again.
[Music playing]
Can you imagine legging your boat through here 120 years ago with steam trains
tearing through the railway tunnels next to you. Ohhh! It'd have been brilliant.
You wouldn't just feel them thundering past, but a few seconds later you'd get the
clouds of smoke and steam just filling the canal tunnel. Now the train tunnels
share the same ventilation shafts with the canal and the water coming down from
the roof is falling from one of the seven shafts that are situated directly
above us. Now the water falls about 500 feet down these shafts and it causes the
air around it to flow down with it so it brings the air down and because all the
tunnels are connected by adits, the movement of the trains and the water
coming down circulates the air. I'll tell you what it would be amazing to have
been in here when the steam trains were around.
[Sound of a Steam Train]
This is the first of the checkpoints, this is where the chaperone from the
Canal and River Trust can get off the boat and let the control room
know that we're at this point safely. If there was a problem we can evacuate the
boat here just go up those steps and it brings us out into that same disused
railway tunnel I showed you earlier and you can still get emergency vehicles in
and out of this tunnel so if ever there was an emergency at least we'll be able
to get out quickly
[Music playing]
You might be able to just see a right-hand Bend coming up and this is
where you, remember when I was talking earlier about Thomas Telford advising
the canal company that the tunnels weren't being built in alignment, one was
slightly off to the other so this is how they overcame it the bill and s-bend
so first of all we bare right and then we'll bareback left again.
[Music playing]
Most of the tunnel you've seen so far has been brick lined, but about half of it
it's just unlined Bare Rock and some parts of it are quite stable but others
have crumbled over the years and need more stabilizing, so a lot of work was
done during the restoration in the 1990s and you might be able to see these Rock
bolts buried about a metre deep into the rock. It's filled with a compound,
it grips the bolts and hopefully it's supposed to prevent any further movement of the rock.
Now when the surface of the rock was loose they'd used this steel mesh
and spread it across the roof and walls and then in some paths that sprayed it
with this specially formulated concrete and it works by strengthening the rock.
But the consequence of it is it reduced the width of the tunnel in these sections,
so it takes a bit more to squeeze your boat through. It does look really alien though.
[Music playing]
You can just see the lights at the end of the tunnel but we're still about 40
minutes away from it and even though it looks like a straight line from here the
light disappears a few more times before we reach the end.
[Music playing]
Have you ever been to Alton Towers? You know that really scary ride that you don't want to
go on? and your mate talks you into it?
I talked him into it.
and it ends up being
brilliant and you want to do it again. And we're not doing it again. [Laughs]
So we got through, an hour and 29 minutes, which is brilliant, it's good going.
Shaun drove all the way through, we only got one little ding and it was on
the gunwale. Yep! It'll be painted out within an hour you'll never know it was there.
I'm on it
They close the gates behind you as soon as you come out.
You can see the narrowboat and the Leggers, That's really cool is that. Cool gate.
It's brilliant inside you will get a bit wet and it's a bit dark and cramped.
You will get very wet, it's like a waterfall at two points isn't it? Yeah. But they
really light your boat well so you can see everything it's really good. As you come
out of the tunnel, you moor up on the right-hand side. There's a water point
and you can get all the gear back on the boat like your chimney, cause we've
just lit a fire and your Pram and Cratch covers and the kayak and the
navigation lights. So we've just put all that back on and then there's a
mooring point about 200 metres round the corner and we're just gonna stay there
for a few days. And rest. So the canal tunnel comes out about
200 metres after the railway tunnel. Where we're moored here is right by the side
of where the trains come out of the tunnel or in the tunnel. There it is.
If you're interested in going through Standedge Tunnel either with your own bow
or taking a trip boat from the Standedge at Marsden end, there's details down
below in the description. We hope you've enjoyed this as much as we have, if you
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and we will see you next Friday, take care. See ya later, bye.
That looks like a little hole
[Laughing] We can't do that can we?
Errrr
Nope train of thoughts gone.
[Train noises] TRAIIIIN!
[Laughing]
[Train noises] TRAIIIIN!
Don't wanna go.
Dillon's gone in the cafe.
People talking and a train.
The tunnel is three and a half miles long
[Train noises] TRAIIIIIIIIIN!
Back in those days there was no steam or hoses... or hoses.
have been 40 borts.... boats no no no take three
just across the way
I've forgotten what it's called.
visitors center warehouse, coal wool and grain.
just...... wait for the wind...... stopped being windy
Just found this memorial right next to the ventilation shaft.
that'll do.
[Music playing]