The Bruce Tunnel is on the summit pound of the

Kennet and Avon Canal The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cen ...

between Wootton Top Lock and

Crofton Locks Crofton Locks are a flight of locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal, near the village of Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, England. The nine locks achieve a total rise/fall of 61 ft 0 in (18.5 m) and were built under the supervision of engineer John ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. The tunnel is long. It is named after

Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury KT (30 April 1729 – 19 April 1814), styled The Honourable Thomas Brudenell until 1747 and known as The Lord Bruce of Tottenham between 1747 and 1776, was a British courtier. Background and educatio ...

(1729–1814), the local landowner, who, when the canal was being built, would not allow a deep cutting through his land, and insisted on a tunnel instead. At the eastern end of the tunnel is a plaque commemorating its construction: The tunnel has

red brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

portals, capped with

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City ...

, each with a decorative plaque of

Pennant stone The Pennant Measures is the traditional name for a sequence of sedimentary rocks of the South Wales Coalfield. They were also referred to as the Upper Coal Measures and assigned to the Westphalian 'C' and Westphalian 'D' stages of the Carbonifero ...

. Construction was begun in 1806 and finished in 1809. It is lined with English bond brickwork and has a wide bore to cope with the ' Newbury Barges' used on this canal. There is no towpath through the tunnel, so walkers and cyclists must walk across the top of the hill. When canal boats were still pulled by horses, the boatmen had to haul boats through the tunnel by hand, pulling on chains that ran along the inside walls. The tunnel is about north of Burbage village. To the north lies the

Savernake Forest Savernake Forest stands on a Cretaceous chalk plateau between Marlborough and Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, England. Its area is approximately . Most of the forest lies within the civil parish of Savernake. It is privately owned by the Earl of C ...

which is open to the public with footpaths, drives and picnic sites, hence the tunnel is also sometimes known as the Savernake Tunnel. The main Paddington to Penzance ' Berks and Hants' railway line crosses the tunnel diagonally; both portals can be seen (from different points along the railway) from the windows of passing trains with the canal running close to the railway at each end.

References

Tunnels completed in 1809 Canal tunnels in England Kennet and Avon Canal Canals in Wiltshire Tunnels in Wiltshire {{Kennet and Avon Canal

See also

References