The longest canal tunnel—indeed, the longest tunnel, whether railway or
canal—in England is the Marsden, on the Huddersfield Canal, 5,450 yards
(3 miles and 170 yards), thus exceeding the longest railway tunnel
by 154 yards. The lengths in yards of some of the principal canal
tunnels of England are as follows:—Sapperton (Thames and Severn),
4,180; Lapal (Dudley), 3,776; Blisworth (Grand Junction), 3,080; Tipton
Green, 2,926; Oxenhall, 2,192; Foulbridge (Leeds and Liverpool), 1,640;
Asperton (Hereford and Gloucester), 1,320; Fenny Compton (Oxford),
1,188. From this list we exclude the Old Thames and Medway Canal
Tunnel, near Rochester, because the South-Eastern Railway Company, when
it purchased the canal, converted the tunnel into one suitable for a
railway; its length is 3,740 yards.
The most recently constructed canal tunnel in England is the Netherton
Tunnel, on a branch of the Birmingham Canal, having only been completed
in 1858. It is 3,036 yards long, 27 feet wide, and 24 feet 4 inches
high in the clear. Seventeen shafts altogether were sunk during its
construction, of which ten were closed on being used for traffic. The
greatest depth of any of the shafts is 344 feet 6 inches, the least
65 feet 9 inches. The time occupied for completing this tunnel was
only two years. For full and minute description of this tunnel see
proceedings of the “Institution of Civil Engineers,” Vol. XIX.
The village of Highgate, situated on one of the two northern hills in
the immediate vicinity of London, was to have had a tunnel 301 feet
long, 24 feet wide, and 13 feet high, for the purpose of avoiding the
steep and dangerous hill on the great road which led, and still leads
from London, towards the North. An Act of Incorporation was obtained,
and the undertaking was prosecuted for a time with great energy; but
unfortunately, after 130 yards of the work had been accomplished, the
whole fell in on the 13th of April, 1812. The accident created an
intense sensation, and it was the subject of a drama: “The Highgate
Tunnel, or the Secret Arch,” which for a time was a source of
attraction at one of the minor theatres at the East end of London. The
disaster put an end to the desire for a tunnel, and the present road
was constructed through a deep cutting, by means of which much of the
steepness of the hill was done away with. Hornsey Lane crosses this
cutting, on a noble bridge, which is called the Highgate Arch.
The late Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., in his address to the Institution
of Civil Engineers, on his election as President in January 1856,
stated, that “tunnels for railways had traversed hills and penetrated
mountains to the extent of nearly 70 miles,” the miles of railways
opened in the United Kingdom at that time being 8,054.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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