Mr. Telford was requested to advise the Company what course was most proper to be adopted in the matter, and after examining the place, he recommended that an entirely new tunnel should be constructed, nearly parallel with the old one, but of much larger dimensions. The work was begun in 1824, and completed in 1827, in less than three years. There were at that time throughout the country plenty of skilled labourers and contractors, many of them trained by their experience upon Telford's own works, where as Brindley had in a great measure to make his workmen out of the rawest material. Telford also had the advantage of greatly improved machinery and an abundant supply of money--the Grand Trunk Canal Company having become prosperous and rich, paying large dividends. It is therefore meet, while eulogising the despatch with which he was enabled to carry out the work, to point out that the much greater period occupied in the earlier undertaking is not to be set down to the disparagement of Brindley, who had difficulties to encounter which the later engineer knew nothing of. The length of the new tunnel is 2926 yards; it is 16 feet high and 14 feet broad, 4 feet 9 inches of the breadth being occupied by the towing-path--for "legging" was now dispensed with, and horses hauled along the boats instead of their being thrust through by men. The tunnel is in so perfectly straight a line that its whole length can be seen through at one view; and though it was constructed by means of fifteen different pitshafts sunk to the same line along the length of the tunnel, the workmanship is so perfect that the joinings of the various lengths of brickwork are scarcely discernible. The convenience afforded by the new tunnel was very great, and Telford mentions that, on surveying it in 1829, he asked a boatman coming; out of it how he liked it? "I only wish," he replied, "that it reached all the way to Manchester!" [Image] Cross Section of Harecastle Tunnel.