Fritchley Tunnel is a disused

railway tunnel Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

Fritchley Fritchley is a small village in Derbyshire south of Crich and north of Ambergate. It falls under the civil parish of Crich. To the west of the village is the ruin of a windmill. Fritchley has an active Congregational Church, and there is a Quaker ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, England, which is believed to be the oldest surviving example in the world. The tunnel was constructed in 1793 by

Benjamin Outram Benjamin Outram (1 April 1764 – 22 May 1805) was an English civil engineer, surveyor and industrialist. He was a pioneer in the building of canals and tramways. Life Born at Alfreton in Derbyshire, he began his career assisting his father J ...

as part of the

Butterley Gangroad The Butterley Gangroad was an early tramway in Derbyshire of approximately gauge, which linked Hilt's Quarry and other limestone quarries at Crich with the Cromford Canal at Bullbridge. The first railway project of Derbyshire civil engineer Be ...

, altered in the 1840s, and remained in use until the railway closed in 1933. It is a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

History

linked Hilt's Quarry and other limestone quarries at

Crich Crich is a village in the English county of Derbyshire. The population at the 2001 Census was 2,821, increasing to 2,898 at the 2011 Census (including Fritchley and Whatstandwell). It has the National Tramway Museum inside the Crich Tramway V ...

with the Cromford Canal at

Bullbridge Bullbridge is a small village in Derbyshire. The Bull bridge accident, in which a railway bridge failed as a goods train was just passing over it, happened here in 1860. The village Bullbridge has a population of approximately 220 and one public ...

. The first railway project of Derbyshire civil engineer

(1764–1805), the line was originally a

horse-drawn A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...

and gravity-driven

plateway A plateway is an early kind of railway, tramway or wagonway, where the rails are made from cast iron. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. Plateways consisted of "L"-shaped rails, where the flange ...

, a form of tramway that Outram popularised. The line was constructed in 1793, with the tunnel being required to go under a road junction in Fritchley. In the 1840s, upgrading took place to accommodate steam locomotives, and part of the original line was moved. The southern part of the tunnel was rebuilt with an entrance slightly to the west of the original one. The tunnel's walls bear evidence of these changes. The railway remained in use until 1933. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Fritchley Tunnel was used as an air raid shelter. The tunnel was sealed up in 1977, and by 1989 both entrances were buried. It was temporarily uncovered during archaeological work on the Butterley Gangroad by Derbyshire Archaeological Society in February 2013. In February 2015, the tunnel was designated a

under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The designation states that the tunnel is "recognised as the earliest surviving railway tunnel in the world and an important representation of tunnel engineering at this time."

Description

The tunnel is located at the junction of Chapel Street with Bobbinmill Hill and Front Street (), near to Riverside Cottage, in the village of Fritchley. It runs under Chapel Street in a broadly north–south direction for , with a height of . The tunnel is constructed from blocks of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

. A bend and joint in the stonework is located from the northern end, which is believed to mark the end of the original (northern) section, dating from 1793. At the point where the two sections join, part of the north-east wall has been repaired or strengthened using brick. The roof is arched, with a circular cross section, and is supported on vertical sides. The tunnel walls have gaps, believed to represent holes left by timbers used in building the arch. The north and south entrances have a semi-circular arch; the

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

s are each constructed from one course of stone blocks. The northern entrance has a stone wall above it that forms a parapet beside Chapel Street. Both ends of the tunnel have been blocked; the northern end with soil, and the southern end with a modern red-brick structure on top of an older stone structure. The interior of the tunnel is coated with soot and bears markings from sleepers. One surviving stone sleeper has been discovered immediately south of the tunnel, with an attached iron spike that was used to retain the rails. Near to the sleeper lies a soil path showing wear consistent with use by horses as a towpath. The Grade-II-listed tramway embankment at Bobbinmill Hill, also part of the tramway at Fritchley, lies north of Fritchley Tunnel.

References

External links

Butterley Gangroad Project
– includes photographs of the excavation
Butterley Gangroad
{{coord, 53.07315, N, 1.46629, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Railway tunnels in England Scheduled monuments in Derbyshire Transport infrastructure completed in 1793 1793 establishments in England Tunnels in Derbyshire

History

Description

See also

References

External links