Having been sitting on reports from Summer trips, I’m now getting around to posting in December.
An extensive history:
Haddon Tunnel was built by the Midland Railway in 1863 on the main line between London and Manchester.
The tunnel rises towards Bakewell on a gradient of 1:102, is 1,058 yards long and was mostly built by the cut and cover method, constructed to hide the railway from the view of the Duke of Rutland where the line passed Haddon Hall.
Towards the west of the tunnel, the River Wye meanders through its spectacular limestone gorge which was overcome by eight tunnels and a collection of assorted viaducts. Whilst the eastern section presented fewer obstacles, the terms set down by the Duke of Rutland for accommodation through his estate gave rise to the line’s most substantial engineering exploit, that of Haddon Tunnel which would bury the railway behind the hall from which its name was taken.
It was built with five ventilation shafts, one was the full width of the double-track tunnel, the deepest was 12 feet.
Initial drawings for the structure survive in the Midland Railway Study Centre, with three signatories. Most notable is that of William Henry Barlow, installed as the Midland’s first Chief Engineer in 1844. By this time he had left to establish a private London practice, albeit retained by his former employer following Stephenson’s retirement.
Barlow was later celebrated for the outstanding St Pancras train shed and his design for the replacement Tay Bridge. George Thomson, fulfilling the role of contractor, and his brother Peter also appended their names. This was a prolific and highly respected pair, credited with building a number of lines in South Wales, the North West and Yorkshire.
-Initial drawings for the tunnel show the north portal and a drainage system towards the southern end, neither of which were built to plan.
On paper, Haddon was envisaged as two tunnels, separated by a short cutting. The most southerly would extend for 120 yards, sitting on a ledge cut in the gently-graded hillside and covered to conceal its segmental arch to a depth of just a few inches. Beyond this, a longer structure of 900 yards - punctured by two ventilation shafts - would comprise cut-and-cover sections either side of a bored portion.
Towards the southern end, a series of drains were planned to channel ground water beneath the tracks where the land fell to below the height of the arch. Even at its deepest point, the crown was barely 30 feet below the surface.
But anyone visiting the tunnel today would struggle to recognise it from that description. Two shafts became five; the cutting disappeared; substantial changes in section are met; an open box near its centre brings 11 yards of daylight.
-A southbound passenger train emerges from the tunnel in August 1961.
Tragic episodes on the line:
During construction of the tunnel in July 1861, a section of the arch collapsed, crushing 5 navvies.
Accidental death became an occupational hazard for the navvy - tight margins and inadequate control measures conspiring against him. Early in September 1861, 22-year-old John Bishop, also a horse driver, was knocked down in the tunnel and then run over by wagons. But such events did little to impede progress.
-An image captured by Sir Miles Cave on 3rd July 1861, the day after a section of arch collapsed killing five navvies.
The structural work was concluded on 11th January 1862, the Duke’s agent having authorised the retention of five ventilation shafts rather than three as first agreed; by April, only a section of permanent way was missing.
On Saturday 24th July 1869, a boy named William Cutts left Derby on an excursion train, heading for Matlock where he intended to sell fruit. As his journey neared its end, drunken railway ganger Henry Southgate took 5lb of plums from him, but refused to pay. Threatened with the police, the miscreant attempted to escape feet-first from a window as the train passed through Haddon Tunnel. The boy grabbed him by the hair, shouting “Either leave the plums or money before you go!” Southgate did neither and fell onto the track. The guard, joined by a porter from Bakewell, found his body in the four-foot of the Down line close to the tunnel’s midpoint, minus its head and a leg.
The early hours of Thursday 5th June 1884 saw more tragedy. Francis Irish, a guard from Kentish Town, described how he heard a loud knocking beneath his van as the 11pm mail train from Liverpool passed through the tunnel at 50mph. He thought that some brickwork had come down. On arrival at Derby, the driver took his hand lamp and examined the locomotive, finding “blood and brains” on the front part of the bogie and a piece of cloth wrapped around the feed pipe. Shortly after 2am, goods inspector Matthew Knott and ganger Watson were despatched to the tunnel where they found the dismembered remains of a “working man” scattered over a distance of several hundred yards.
Final closure:
Whilst the 1963 Beeching Report prompted the withdrawal of local Matlock-Buxton/Manchester services, the line’s complete closure to through traffic was determined by a confidential 1964 study into ‘duplicate’ trans-Pennine routes and the introduction, in April 1966, of electric haulage for Manchester-Euston services on the West Coast Main Line. From October that year, freight and parcels no longer rattled through the tunnel, diverted instead via the Hope Valley line.
The anticipated announcement that passenger expresses would follow was not long in coming, and so on Saturday 29th June 1968 - a day early thanks to a guards’ dispute - 1H18 St Pancras-Manchester Piccadilly became the last train to endure Haddon Tunnel’s darkness at about 7:45pm. The Up line was lifted in June 1969; recovery of the Down took place the following summer.
Peak Rail has ambitious plans to reopen the line and tunnel on its intended extension to Bakewell, however as of present, this has not come to fruition due to financial and planning issues.
The explore:
So on a Summer trip to Matlock, camping in Permanite Asphalt Works with @scrappy, @Jonesey, @LashedLlama, @Pixels and @plod we visited Haddon tunnel over a weekend in July.
This is one I’d seen pictures of before, but pictures don’t do this justice.
Approaching the portal, this wasn’t as ornate as other tunnels I’d been in. This makes sense when you remember the tunnel was purely to serve to be out of sight from the Duke of Rutland.
The door was stuck firm, so after a bit of a prise, shimmy, and well, swinging..
… we were in.
Looking back to the entrance, but the special was up ahead.
Little rays of light providing beautiful lighting for the natural fauna that coated the walls and track bed.
A photographers dream, well, at least for me.
Heading further on you reach the open box section; overgrown and perfect for more snaps.
The tunnel stretched on, slightly misty in torch light.
With light starting to fade we turned back in search of a pub for dinner, but not before one last shot.
All in all a great trip with some great people.
An extensive history:
Haddon Tunnel was built by the Midland Railway in 1863 on the main line between London and Manchester.
The tunnel rises towards Bakewell on a gradient of 1:102, is 1,058 yards long and was mostly built by the cut and cover method, constructed to hide the railway from the view of the Duke of Rutland where the line passed Haddon Hall.
Towards the west of the tunnel, the River Wye meanders through its spectacular limestone gorge which was overcome by eight tunnels and a collection of assorted viaducts. Whilst the eastern section presented fewer obstacles, the terms set down by the Duke of Rutland for accommodation through his estate gave rise to the line’s most substantial engineering exploit, that of Haddon Tunnel which would bury the railway behind the hall from which its name was taken.
It was built with five ventilation shafts, one was the full width of the double-track tunnel, the deepest was 12 feet.
Initial drawings for the structure survive in the Midland Railway Study Centre, with three signatories. Most notable is that of William Henry Barlow, installed as the Midland’s first Chief Engineer in 1844. By this time he had left to establish a private London practice, albeit retained by his former employer following Stephenson’s retirement.
Barlow was later celebrated for the outstanding St Pancras train shed and his design for the replacement Tay Bridge. George Thomson, fulfilling the role of contractor, and his brother Peter also appended their names. This was a prolific and highly respected pair, credited with building a number of lines in South Wales, the North West and Yorkshire.
-Initial drawings for the tunnel show the north portal and a drainage system towards the southern end, neither of which were built to plan.
On paper, Haddon was envisaged as two tunnels, separated by a short cutting. The most southerly would extend for 120 yards, sitting on a ledge cut in the gently-graded hillside and covered to conceal its segmental arch to a depth of just a few inches. Beyond this, a longer structure of 900 yards - punctured by two ventilation shafts - would comprise cut-and-cover sections either side of a bored portion.
Towards the southern end, a series of drains were planned to channel ground water beneath the tracks where the land fell to below the height of the arch. Even at its deepest point, the crown was barely 30 feet below the surface.
But anyone visiting the tunnel today would struggle to recognise it from that description. Two shafts became five; the cutting disappeared; substantial changes in section are met; an open box near its centre brings 11 yards of daylight.
-A southbound passenger train emerges from the tunnel in August 1961.
Tragic episodes on the line:
During construction of the tunnel in July 1861, a section of the arch collapsed, crushing 5 navvies.
Accidental death became an occupational hazard for the navvy - tight margins and inadequate control measures conspiring against him. Early in September 1861, 22-year-old John Bishop, also a horse driver, was knocked down in the tunnel and then run over by wagons. But such events did little to impede progress.
-An image captured by Sir Miles Cave on 3rd July 1861, the day after a section of arch collapsed killing five navvies.
The structural work was concluded on 11th January 1862, the Duke’s agent having authorised the retention of five ventilation shafts rather than three as first agreed; by April, only a section of permanent way was missing.
On Saturday 24th July 1869, a boy named William Cutts left Derby on an excursion train, heading for Matlock where he intended to sell fruit. As his journey neared its end, drunken railway ganger Henry Southgate took 5lb of plums from him, but refused to pay. Threatened with the police, the miscreant attempted to escape feet-first from a window as the train passed through Haddon Tunnel. The boy grabbed him by the hair, shouting “Either leave the plums or money before you go!” Southgate did neither and fell onto the track. The guard, joined by a porter from Bakewell, found his body in the four-foot of the Down line close to the tunnel’s midpoint, minus its head and a leg.
The early hours of Thursday 5th June 1884 saw more tragedy. Francis Irish, a guard from Kentish Town, described how he heard a loud knocking beneath his van as the 11pm mail train from Liverpool passed through the tunnel at 50mph. He thought that some brickwork had come down. On arrival at Derby, the driver took his hand lamp and examined the locomotive, finding “blood and brains” on the front part of the bogie and a piece of cloth wrapped around the feed pipe. Shortly after 2am, goods inspector Matthew Knott and ganger Watson were despatched to the tunnel where they found the dismembered remains of a “working man” scattered over a distance of several hundred yards.
Final closure:
Whilst the 1963 Beeching Report prompted the withdrawal of local Matlock-Buxton/Manchester services, the line’s complete closure to through traffic was determined by a confidential 1964 study into ‘duplicate’ trans-Pennine routes and the introduction, in April 1966, of electric haulage for Manchester-Euston services on the West Coast Main Line. From October that year, freight and parcels no longer rattled through the tunnel, diverted instead via the Hope Valley line.
The anticipated announcement that passenger expresses would follow was not long in coming, and so on Saturday 29th June 1968 - a day early thanks to a guards’ dispute - 1H18 St Pancras-Manchester Piccadilly became the last train to endure Haddon Tunnel’s darkness at about 7:45pm. The Up line was lifted in June 1969; recovery of the Down took place the following summer.
Peak Rail has ambitious plans to reopen the line and tunnel on its intended extension to Bakewell, however as of present, this has not come to fruition due to financial and planning issues.
The explore:
So on a Summer trip to Matlock, camping in Permanite Asphalt Works with @scrappy, @Jonesey, @LashedLlama, @Pixels and @plod we visited Haddon tunnel over a weekend in July.
This is one I’d seen pictures of before, but pictures don’t do this justice.
Approaching the portal, this wasn’t as ornate as other tunnels I’d been in. This makes sense when you remember the tunnel was purely to serve to be out of sight from the Duke of Rutland.
The door was stuck firm, so after a bit of a prise, shimmy, and well, swinging..
… we were in.
Looking back to the entrance, but the special was up ahead.
Little rays of light providing beautiful lighting for the natural fauna that coated the walls and track bed.
A photographers dream, well, at least for me.
Heading further on you reach the open box section; overgrown and perfect for more snaps.
The tunnel stretched on, slightly misty in torch light.
With light starting to fade we turned back in search of a pub for dinner, but not before one last shot.
All in all a great trip with some great people.
