The northern portal of Harecastle Tunnel
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The northern portal of Harecastle Tunnel by Mat Fascione as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The northern portal of Harecastle Tunnel
Image: © Mat Fascione Taken: 11 Jul 2015
Harecastle Tunnel is on the Trent & Mersey Canal at Kidsgrove. There are actually two separate, parallel, tunnels named Brindley (2,880 yards or 2,633 metres) and the later Telford (2,926 yards or 2,675 metres) after the engineers that constructed them. The Brindley tunnel was constructed by James Brindley between 1770 and 1777, it was closed after a partial collapse in 1914. The Telford Tunnel is only wide enough to carry traffic in one direction at a time and boats are sent through in groups, alternating northbound and southbound. An air extraction fan-house has been built around the south portal to aid ventilation in the tunnel. It takes 45 minutes to travel through the tunnel. The rusty colour of the water is caused by water entering the canal from the Brindley tunnel which contains iron oxide, there are proposals to install filtering (possibly using reed beds) at the northern portal.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
53.084137
Longitude
-2.244503