It is 308 yards long and it has no towpath but boats can pass inside it. It was a tough life and some workers even slept rough on the towpath.
Legging in canal tunnels.
Legging canal tunnels. Many thanks to dudley canal tunnel trust for allowing us to spend the day with them. Tunnel canal length designer coordinates notes image ashford tunnel. Emerging from the tunnel.
Brecknock and abergavenny canal. Bob gough maria moored up at a damp tunnel end as the crowd awaits the other boats. Canals beneath the hills.
Prior to the introduction of motorised boats legging was one of the few options for getting a boat through such a tunnel. A distant speck of light is the end of the tunnel. Harecastle tunnel is a canal tunnel on the trent and mersey canal in staffordshire between kidsgrove and tunstall the tunnel which is 1 6 mi 2 6 km long was once one of the longest in the country.
Boats were propelled through it by legging. Legging pauses as the boat glides through a wide section of tunnel. Its industrial purpose was for the transport of coal to the kilns in the staffordshire potteries the canal runs under 195 m 640 ft harecastle hill near goldenhill the highest district in stoke.
The constantly changing profile of the tunnel. Early canal tunnels were built without a towpath as this would require a much larger bore and hence cost more to build. Find out how to leg a narrowboat through a canal tunnel as we visit the dudley canal and tunnel trust and leg a canal narrowboat the old fashioned way through lord ward s section of dudley tunnel.
Legging is the act of moving a narrowboat through a canal tunnel while lying on your back either atop the boat or as was most common on a plank jutting out across its bow at both sides and. They avoided them wherever possible taking winding routes around hills as on the oxford canal or climbing up and over the hills as on the rochdale canal. Hyde bank tunnel this tunnel is the second of the three original tunnels on the peak forest canal and it is situated in romiley.
Emerging from the tunnel to the waiting crowd. Building tunnels was probably the most difficult engineering task facing the early canal builders. Often the leggers were in their 60s and 70s and were no longer capable of heavy full time work on the canal.
375 yards 343 m thomas dadford brecknockshire powys tunnel narrows considerably between northern and southern portals due to repairs to its fabric but is nevertheless navigable by a narrowboat with relative ease. Lower peak forest canal hyde bank tunnel roof collapse in 1895. You can find out more about the tunnels on.
A trip to the excellent black country museum and a trip on the dudley canal in one of the dudley canal trusts boats a chance to try legging a narrowboat through a tunnel. With the onset of steam tugs and with more towpaths built through the tunnels legging was gradually phased out.
