ENGINEERS braved the spooks and spectres to inspect the Harecastle Tunnel in Staffordshire to ensure it is safe for thousands of waterway users to navigate.
Officials from the Canal & River Trust inched along the Harecastle Tunnel, one of the longest canal tunnels on Britain’s historic canal network, to carry out a vital inspection of the Grade II-listed structure on the Trent & Mersey Canal near Kidsgrove.
At more than one-and-a-half miles long (2676 metres), the Thomas Telford-built tunnel is a key point on the Trent & Mersey Canal, still navigated by thousands of canal boats each year, making it important for jobs and local tourism as well as the environmental and wildlife benefits that today’s navigable canals provide.
Jonathan Muir, senior tunnel surveyor at Canal & River Trust, said: “Built two centuries ago, Harecastle Tunnel is a marvel of the Industrial Revolution. It is vital that we give it the care and attention that it deserves, with every part of the network an important piece of the jigsaw to keep the canals open and alive.
“Inspecting the tunnel means travelling slowly through the tunnel, tapping the old bricks to ensure their structural integrity, measuring the profile of the tunnel to check for any movement, and monitoring for any leaks or cracks. The inspection will determine what maintenance and conservation repairs our charity needs to programme in.”
The surveyors travelled on a boat with a specially mounted platform to enable them to inspect every inch of the tunnel, said to be the most haunted on the canal network.
Harecastle Tunnel is one of the five longest fully navigable canal tunnels in the country. It was hand dug using pick and shovel and Thomas Telford had the tunnel lined with millions of locally made 19th century bricks.
There are two tunnels at Harecastle. The first tunnel, now disused, was designed by the ‘Father of the Canals’ James Brindley and completed in 1777.
However, as demand for coal and freight increased, its limited capacity became a problem, and the second Telford tunnel was commissioned. Construction started 200 years ago in 1824, and the tunnel opened in 1827.
Harecastle Tunnel has the reputation of being one of the most haunted canal tunnels in Britain, home to the infamous Kidsgrove Boggart.
It is said that a woman arrived in Kidsgrove on her way to join her husband in London.
She accepted a lift with some boatmen and was murdered for the valuables in her luggage.
Her body was hidden in a culvert off the main tunnel leading to Goldenhill colliery, known as Gilberts Hole. The story goes that when her body was found, she had been beheaded.
