The early history of tunnel construction in Britain during the railway boom.

To the early railway traveller, the prospect of travelling to places in hours rather than days hitherto was an inviting prospect, however a journey was not without its fears as well as excitement. To some, the prospect of travelling through a tunnel without carriage lighting, with smoke permeating the compartment and the confined noise was a horror of the new age. What might happen if we broke down or crashed into another train in the darkness? To others it was exciting, with the light from the footplate flickering against the tunnel walls or spotting the occasional glimpses of light from a ventilation shaft.

To the directors of early railway companies, planning a route was governed by expense and the most direct way. Avoiding hills could add miles but tunnelling through them could involve vast expense as the Great Western Railway found at Box and the London and Birmingham at Kilsby. Creating a cutting as an alternative was also costly not only in labour and time, but also in compensation for landowners, who opposed railways on visual and social grounds having seen their land divided by canals.

Construction involved millions of bricks or blocks of stone for sufficiently thick walls to withstand collapse. However, the entrance barely seen from the carriage window might be an impressive Italianate arch as at Primrose Hill, or a castellated portal worthy of the Middle Ages as at Bramhope.

This book sets out to tell the story of tunnelling in Britain up to about 1870, when it was a question of burrowing through earth and rock with spade and explosive powder, with the constant danger of collapse or flooding leading to injury and death. It uses contemporary accounts, from the dangers of railway travel by Dickens to the excitement of being drawn through the Liverpool Wapping Tunnel by the young composer Mendelssoln. It includes descriptions from early railway company guide books, newspapers and diaries. It also includes numerous photographs and colored architectural elevations from railway archives.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introduction: The Fascination of the Railway Tunnel
  • The tunnel in railway history
  • Literature and landowners
  • Engineers
  • Travellers and observers
  • Sources
• Chapter 2 The Need for a Railway Tunnel and the Problems of Construction
  • Why build a Tunnel?
  • The criteria for tunnelling
  • The earliest railway tunnels
  • Robert Stephenson’s early tunnels
  • The first tunnel for steam passenger haulage
  • Practical problems of tunnel construction on early trunk routes
  • Bottlenecks
  • Environmental considerations
  • Collapse and abandonment
  • Celebration
  • Box Tunnel
• Chapter 3 A Railway, a Landowner and his Estate
  • Proposing a railway
  • Definition of a landowner’s domain
  • The nature of opposition?
  • Personal gain or national interest?
  • Eccentric and unusual objections
  • Brunel and landowners
  • Other planning interests or constraints
  • The impact of landowner opposition on the early railways
  • Shugborough and the Earl of Lichfield
• Chapter 4 The Fascination of Early Railway Tunnels
  • The early fascination with caves and grottoes
  • The Castleton Cavern
  • The attraction of early mining tunnels
  • Joseph Williamson and his passion for tunnels
  • The impact of a giant portal
  • The Liverpool tunnels
  • The earliest passenger experiences of tunnels elsewhere
  • The role of the early railway guide
  • The glorification of the London and Birmingham Railway
  • The Great Western Railway
  • Crossing the spine of England
  • Dante’s Inferno, or a modern vision of Hell
  • A trip beneath cliffs and downs
  • Fiction
  • The tunnel in art
  • The earliest railway illustrations
  • Illustrating the London and Birmingham Railway
  • The Romantic portal: Shugborough
  • Bourne’s Great Western Railway
  • The tunnel portrait
• Chapter 5 The Fear of a Railway Tunnel
  • The fear of speed
  • Vibration
  • Public feelings and health
  • How many tunnels to Brighton?
  • The propaganda of fear and reassurance
  • Ventilation, the views of Lardner, Herapath and Storer
  • The fear of collapse and prolonged darkness
  • The question of lighting
  • The fear of collision
  • Signalling
  • Crime in the carriage
  • Fear as entertainment
  • The chance of death in a tunnel
  • Enlightenment
• Chapter 6 Style and Taste: Unnecessary Splendour Classical or Castellated?
  • Stephenson’s tunnel portals
  • Shugborough Tunnel drawings, the south portal
  • The north portal
  • Brunel’s Tunnel Portals
  • The Box Tunnel drawings
  • The east portal
  • The west portal
  • The forgotten tunnel: Middle Hill
  • Between Bath and Bristol: Twerton and Brislington tunnels
  • The classic castellated portals: Bramhope and Red Hill
  • The mystery of Clayton Tunnel
  • The cost, a necessary architectural extravagance?
• Chapter 7 Postscript
• Glossary of Railway Companies and Abbreviations
• Appendix 1 Architectural Terminology
• Appendix 2 Tunnel Portals with Distinctive Architectural Character
• Appendix 3 Accidents in Tunnels 1830–70 reported to the Board of Trade or in the Press
• Appendix 4 Cost of Construction
• Bibliography
• Endnotes