Cathedral Arch, Dudley canal

Image: © Rudi Winter Taken: 8 Jun 2014

This underground canal junction within Dudley tunnel on the Dudley canal once led into Dark Cavern, a nearly 400m long limestone mine inside Castle Hill. The roof of the cavern was held up by a series of limestone pillars left in place during the mining operation. It is now backfilled after rock falls occurred. The junction has a vaulted brickwork structure which contrasts with the raw rock tunnels surrounding it. Barge No.17 sits in the stub canal, while the Dudley Canal Trust's tour boat, from which the photo was taken, moves along the main canal. Unfortunately, the fluorescent paint on the boat's railings washes out into the background in this photograph. Castle Hill and nearby Wren's Nest are anticlines of Silurian limestone layers protruding from the surrounding Carboniferous coal beds. Both the limestone and the coal were quarried from the beginning of the industrial revolution and used in the iron smelting industry of the West Midlands of England. Mining finally ceased in 1920. The Dudley canal was completed in 1791, running in a tunnel under Castle Hill for nearly 3km in a SSW direction. Several branch canals were built around the same time to access the limestone seams in the Castle Hill anticline, which run roughly SSE. In addition, there is a westerly branch leading to Wren's Nest. Multiple caverns have been excavated inside Castle Hill, some of which up to 800m in length. Many of the caverns have had roof collapses and rock falls and have since been backfilled. However, some are still accessible by boat through the original tunnels and a few new link tunnels built in the 1980s to enable the Dudley Canal Trust to run circular tours for visitors to see the mines. A schematic map of the canal system is shown on the Trust's website https://web.archive.org/web/20150101180643/http://www.dudleytunnel.co.uk/mines.html (archive link).

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