The Lost Canal Tunnel in the Woods. Sapperton.
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- Hey folks, we took a walk along the top of the Sapperton Canal Tunnel. Here is our Adventure.
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This is the Sapperton canal Tunnel, built between 1783 and 1789. When built it was the longest Canal Tunnel in the world measuring 2.4 miles long with 25-26 shafts. We found a few of these along our trip and decided to explore one a little closer! Amazing forgotten architecture throughout we a view of both portals including a trip in one!
Thanks for watching. See you next week.
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Great and relaxing as usual. Thanks guys xx
Paul and Rebecca I feel compelled to write a comment having had wellyage , a double entendre, and a doobly doo all mixed in with truly enjoyable content is an absolute joy !!! I thought this was a great idea to devote 1 episode ,an in depth look if you like to the skills and genius of engineers and navvies long past though I'm sure you could have made this 2 hours long and still not done them true justice !!! To think this is probably done on a shoestring budget and only in your spare time amazes me . I myself grew up next to a victim of the Beeching cull and would have loved you to have devoted some time to it's history and sad demise but as you know progress waits for no man ( and his wife ) and no longer is this closed station there ................ after much time and effort it's been RE-OPENED !!!
Hey Paul. What is the song in the intro?
Thanks for that, it brought back memories of a few years ago assisting the canal trust with an inspection using canoes. Was quite the adventure dragging the boats over multiple collapses until eventually we were halted by the mud rather than the collapses themselves.
Think we might be related?
Really don’t know why people bother with TV anymore when people like you produce quality like this on RUclips. Thank you. That was a brilliant watch.
I don't bother with TV anymore 😁
Honeysuckle Blossom so did I !! 😆
Nathan Lucas and they dont need a fleet of TV detector vans to terrorise anyone into paying for it either 😁
Give it a few years and there'll be RUclips detector vans roaming the streets 😆
I don't bother with TV any more either.
I love the way at 2:25 he’s speaking all softly into the camera, as if the tunnel is a gazelle that we don’t wish to frighten off 👌
Oooh, you has no idea what I'z seen and hurrd out that tunnel since I were a booay in nineteen-fordy-sem
That was very good. Loved the Rover and the shaft footage. i still think it should have been Called A.R.S.E Rover but I cant remember what it all stood for 😀
Shaft footage reminded me of your Standedge Tunnel 'GoPro on a rope' video
Hahahaha.... I forget myself now!
So now we have COC Rover, TIT Rover, and Tank Rover. Am I forgetting any?
can see a new business here for you martin, martin zero's rovers-will fit in any shape hole you can find :)
@@everhope6364 Easy Tiger.
For someone like me who never had an interest in any form of history, let alone abandoned canals and shafts, i find myself in later years really enjoying what has been a great part of our past. I've said in a later video that the one big reason that i enjoy watching your video's are because of you both! You have a wonderful attitude to what you both do and explain things in layman terms. This, like all the others i have watched was very interesting. Looking forward to catching up on a few more. Thanks guys.
Paul and Rebecca, you are my heros. Is there nowhere you have not explored. Sapperton is a ‘big one’ in every sense. So glad I found the Whitwick take on Sapperton.
"Dave's an engineer and has designed a 'tunnel rover'": promptly produces a skate board with a camera and torch nailed to it lol. Love it :)
Proper engineering - nowt too clever or fancy.
My American brain briefly produced an image of a flaming kitchen or welding torch in place of the flashlight before converting to British English and calming down 😂😂😂
The Tunnel House Inn above the Coates portal is one of my favourite pubs and well worth the long journey down from the north-west of England where I live. Have had many wild nights in there!
Used to be the haunt of the royals from Highgrove
Indeed, Tunnel House is in beautiful setting. A favourite among Royal Ag College students and local royalty. Last tenants took it over in 2017, but sadly they shut it and quit at very short notice in Sept 2019 - "unable to agree terms with the landlord". Spooky place today with it gated/ fenced off😢
The Daneway Inn at t'other end is alive and well - great food and ale there 👍
I've been a member of the Cotswold Canal Trust for many years and have walked large parts of the Thames and Severn, Stroudwater and Sharpness canals. I have been in the tunnel, in January when the water level is high the CCT used to run boat trips into the tunnel from the Sapperton end. I've had quite a few excellent lunches in the Inn. All days gone by for me as I now live in France but really enjoy your videos.
*Coates end.
Brilliant idea ☺️👍🤠😉 made me happy.. gotta love a curious mind.🐶
Always
Lovely day for it.
After your quiz question in Feb2021... had to look up the video!
Spectacular images, in the tunnel, the shaft and surroundings. I enjoyed it a lot. 🤩
A real Martin zero experience down that shaft. Exciting 👍👍👍
Absolutely yup.
This is better than anything on tv x
"Wellidge" might take a while to get into the Oxford. Thank you both and Garry too.
Great video Paul and Rebecca,love the rover footage,I couldn't help but laugh, sorry to lower the tone, when you said"let's talk shafts" Rebecca's face was a picture 😂,or am I seeing things 👍😀👌
" lets talk about shafts " ...... naughty smile from your mrs
Not _that_ shaft.
& lets not talk about the "Deep hole in the woods " :)
"Number 2: Bottom" :P
Fantastic investigation. Marvellous film with a very factual commentary as usual. Thanks for all you did.
This is the best of your videos I've seen so far. Editing, soundtrack and production are fantastic. So interesting. Thank you!
a big thumbs up to that
Great video, as always. The holes in the brickwork in the tunnel are most likely “putlog” holes. They are part of the original construction to support the centering that supported the arch roof.
Thanks David. That makes a lot of sense
That's interesting. Having been on a canal boat trip many years ago we actually had to walk our boat through a long tunnel 'old style' - it was great fun at the time but I can't imagine having to do that for a living...
Oh my, I love your channel.
Thank you for your time and efforts to share a mysterious part of our world.
Our pleasure!
Great video guys! Top effort. Fully enjoyed. I think it'll be a few years before a survey, but the more people that join the Cotswolds canal trust, the quicker it will happen!!
I'm surprised by how much I'm learning about canals around Britain. Great work indeed 👍
Us too Nigel!!
Thanks a lot for the great video. I really enjoyed it, especially as I have been fascinated by the Thames & Severn Canal since I was child (60+ years ago!) I spent a lot of my childhood holidays staying on the edge of the Golden Valley (in Brownshill) and as a keen railway enthusiast, I also haunted the railway line that the canal runs parallel to. When we got bored, we would wander off and go and explore the canal - this is when I first saw the remains of the tunnel. Two years ago, my wife and I were in the area (from Western Australia) and spent a very enjoyable afternoon walking along the canal. We visited both portals and met someone who clearly knew a bit about the canal and its tunnel. He confirmed that 'legging' was the method of propulsion through the tunnel and also mentioned that some organisation (I can't remember who but presumably the organisation that is attempting to restore the canal) operates occasional trips in a shallow draft boat up the tunnel.
Thank you, glad it brought back some memories. Yes legging it seems along the side was the method. Between 4-6 hours depending on the direction and load!
Unfortunately it was only at the very end of the Canal Age - when Strood Tunnel was constructed in 1820 to provide a short cut between the Thames and the Medway - that the builders had the good sense to continue the tow path all the way through the tunnel! Everywhere else the boatmen had to leg it through!
I love this couple. I could watch them all day long......
Ahhh thanks Max.
Was that trying not to laugh at the shaft comment 🤔. Very professional 😂.
Everyone needs a little air ventilation when working with shafts😲😂😂. Shafts, holes, tunnels... this is a mine field 😂
I love the quiet conspiritus voice during the filming so as not to alert lurking council authorities keeping guard for breakers of health and safety rules. You can just catch a glimpse of a polished cap badge peeping out from behind beech tree at 4.21. If you’re going to flout health and safety rules like this, I’m subscribing. Far more interesting than the BBC et al. Gripping stuff. Suggestion for next time....do the rock slide by Bristol suspension bridge. I used to slide down that as a boy. Great fun.
Hahahaha.... We flout on random occasions
What a _beast_ of A tunnel 😲 Goodness!!
Gem of a channel.👍
Ah thank you.
Been watching your videos for a few months now and find them really interesting, so pleased to stumble across this one as living between Stroud and Sapperton I've run along past the tunnel entrance and shafts many times but never equipped to take a look inside - Thanks!
The UK is so awesome so much history I wish it was like that here in Canada
We are lucky indeed.
Good find
Wonderful stuff!
Thanks Chris
This is Pauls favourite Video.
Love your videos can't believe how many miles you must cover👍
Great vid guys esp at 3.33 when Rebecca cant hold back her smile and tries to keep a serious face as you talk about shafts, as for the T.I.T rover made me smile, well done very entertaining and interesting.
Thanks guys, really interesting to see history come alive.
Really enjoyed the vblog back in the shire a beautiful day. Looking forward to the Somerset coal canal. 👍👍
Your awesome!
Amazing vlog! So exciting. Loved the shaft finds out in the woods. The canal tunnel was really beautiful on the first entrance with the columns and niches for a statue. So much work and craftsmanship in something so utilitarian. Just lights the imagination. Thank you for taking me along😊
Thanks Dawn. Was a great little adventure.
I'm starting to think everything has gone backwards in this world all the beautiful things they hide and remove from us... this is brilliant boots on the ground.
Fantastic enjoyed it imensley
Thanks Geoff.
Your video turned up out the blue, me and my friends in the 70s early eighties used to mess about in sapperton tunnel, all Minchinhampton and Chalford boys but we only ever got about a 5th of the way through there were numerous collapses but one we couldn’t get over. Exuberance of youth probably over took sense back then I think I was 8, but we did meet a leg man who had legged through whilst his father walked the horse to tunnel house for rest and food
Someone at 3:34 was making her own jokes up about "talking about shafts". Love the grin. :-)
Great stuff .
Thanks!
"I'm scared!"
Who could resist a proposition like that? 😁
Endlessly fascinating exploration!
That was fabulous. Very interesting. The rover was a great success. I agree, I think the shaft is blocked part way with fallen branches and general forest detritus, and does go down further. The ker plunk analogy is an apposite one. I have to say those shafts are absolute death traps.
That's why they are all fenced off!
Fabulous and interesting as always. Keep them coming. Very enjoyable vlog. Thank you
Amazing 😀
Thanks William.
We would like to see down some more of these deep dark holes, thank you. Not just here but you often come across places like this and we always wonder whats down there, lol.
Always a pleasure
Probably the best you have ever done ! The caisson underwater was a crazy concept !
Thanks Ford. Very kind.
Thank you very much really enjoyed that. Gosh that hole was so deep, glad you did t take any risks. Loved the tunnel, just love tunnels.thanks for taking me along. P,ease stay safe
Thanks Linda.
Hi guys. Great video! It was equally lovely to see a couple really enjoying the explore without either of you trying to sound more important than the other. You two obviously have a fun, loving relationship. I live in Queensland Australia now but being Sussex born and raised I really miss the stunning English countryside (especially the fact that you don't have to worry about all the biting insects, Huntsman spiders (AKA 'big b*stards) or snakes like we have to over here. Keep up the video's, I've subscribed.
Thanks Susan very kind. Thanks for subscribing too.
Another great video. Fond memories of being in that area following the canal during our 1995 camper van year in UK. Spent some time in the nearby pub, I recall :) Best wishes,
Des & Jan
Thanks both.
Another great well edited and informative video i'm loving these railway and canal tunnel adventures you always find the history about these places which is most interesting. Stay safe and see you in the next.
Thanks David, most enjoyable to make.
The mat of wood in the hole is interesting. I first thought of dropping a lump of phosphorus down which would burn, dry out the wood and hopefully burn away the blockage. Second thoughts it might just make a single hole and fall through. Second idea is a wire rope with a wire cage holding the phosphorus. It can quickly be lowered down with about 3ft/1m of slack. If it burnt itself through then it would be held in or below the blockage burning away nicely. It would smoke A LOT but just don't breath it in.
Just in case you have issues getting or transporting phosphorus just get some cheap lipo/lithium ion batteries. 3D print holders and have large terminals that can be shorted out. Pull out the insulated clip (cloths peg for example) that releases both terminals to short as you drop the batteries down the shaft. Some should burn quite energetically and sufficient numbers may do the trick. Assemble at the top of the hole to make transport innocent looking and safe. There is a plan C but probably best left untold.
But I'd be intrigued to hear it!
Nicely explored. Pretty basic health and safety measures for "anti shaft falling down"??!!! Gary, top engineer, nearly beaten by the dreaded twisted nylon rope!!! 👍👍
Facinating Exploration of a fogotton mode of transport...well worth the effort...well done!!!!
Thanks Richard a fun couple of Days.
Regarding how boats were propelled through the tunnel, I read the manuscript of a diary that had an account of how some people on a canoeing holiday went through the tunnel, and it states that pumps caused the flow through the tunnel to be reversed at intervals and that boats went with the flow.
Fishing waders are cheap. Grab a stick/cane, to check the ground in front and go for a walk.
The health issue you may have in there is mould.
Great video.
Thanks Darren, going again I'm the autumn with waders and a boat!
Another great watch, as said before, better than any TV. I was fully expecting to see deer skeletons at the bottom of that shaft but no ??? First Coc Rover, now Tit Rover, whatever next ?
Watch this space
A point of interest about Sapperton tunnel. in the late 1950's a party from Coventry Canal Society decided to explore as much of the tunnel as possible. there were four in the party, and they had two boats. a conventional dinghy and a rubber one. The inflatable was appropriately named 'Windbag'. they entered the tunnel without seeking permission on the basis that they felt there was no-one who could give it. They proceeded into the tunnel hauling the boats over any roof falls they encountered. About (they estimate) 2/3 of the way through they were stopped by a roof fall that was too big to get over as it completely blocked the tunnel. They had to turn back, but not before affixing a plaque to the wall commemorating their visit. As far as is known that plaque is still there awaiting discovery.
Brilliant thanks Tony. We have been invited in come the Autumn in an official capacity. Naturally a video will follow.
loved this went here often nice to see you in my neck of the woods really hope you went to the railway tunnel a stone throw from there its an amazing place
Thank you you two, I enjoy my walks with you, and I believe your daughter ? Sometime I thought it would be good if you had a dog, all those walks, but then I realized: holes in the ground, shafts, adits, mucky water, so may be not!
Lovely film. Who doesn't love a fascinating woodland hole? Plus one for antique Kerplunk! Amazing how you can do this while being so smartly dressed.
I am farrrr from smartly dressed.... 🤪
Considering the activity you were undertaking Rebecca especially was very smartly dressed. Impressive I think.
Loved the camera down the shaft!! Pity it was blocked so you couldn't get down to the bottom but still great views of the stone lined shaft. Also great to hear future videos will include the Somersetshire coal canal and Camerton train station. That's my neck of the woods so will look forward to that. Thanks again for a great video.
The walk down the canal from the Bell Inn to the daneway pub has to be one of the nicest in the country , beautiful valley no road or traffic. From the other end you have the Tunnel Inn which is a great pub, where you can walk to what is the source of the Thames (dried up! When I went).
A very enjoyable trip. That would be a great filmed with a 360 camera for a VR experience, it's amazing when done in water wells.
This is a remarkable video thank you from New Zealand
Fascinating video! I wonder, if they ever actioned the plan to redistribute water from the Severn to the Thames, they'd use Sapperton or just build a new water tunnel that they knew wouldn't collapse.
Fantastic video, very enjoyable Guys. Thank you for sharing and keep safe.
Thanks John.
Amazing piece of industrial heritage. Great video which zooms in on the construction details. This canal deserves to be restored! Its nice to see you all out.
Loved your video so much I visited both portals when I visited the UK last summer!
Andy Ley (geocacher) has a video where he goes beyond the collapse:
Sapperton Canal Tunnel, Danesway Portal. Will have to come back to visit more of 'your' places!
Another splendid video. Very interesting, and it's amazing that in the 1700s they were building tunnels that long.
You included some cracking stills photography also.
Keep it up.
Thanks for noticing Nigel.
Sapperton Tunnel on the Thames and Severn Canal, driven for 3,817 yards through the Jurassic Limestone of the Cotswold Escarpment so straight and level that it was possible to see all the way through from one end to the other, was undoubtedly the supreme achievement of 18th Century English civil engineering. Its builders had access to only the most primitive of surveying instruments and the only explosive available to them was gunpowder. The Roman town of Cirencester, situated high on the parched Cotswold uplands, was turned into an inland port by the arrival of the canal in 1789, whereupon the price of coal from the mines in the Forest of Dean promptly fell by two-thirds!
Waffle? Never.
What a cracking cracking video from our intrepid explorers. Risking life and limb to bring us the virtual days out that we love.
Thanks folks.
Bob
Great to think this all coming back into use, providing a canal link from Severn to Thames.
Isn’t it strange how easily we abandon works of art like this. The lives lost in the construction of these long forgotten gems shouldn’t be forgotten. They were recently working on the Lancaster Canal that had been closed down, I don’t know why.
Sometimes it's just unsafe after years of abandonment, and cost required to make it usable (even as tourist destination) and, most importantly, SAFE! is not worth it :)
Think it was abandoned because the M6 motorway cuts through it in various places as it bends and curves around with the motorway ploughing straight through a number of these curves
Wellyage! LOL. Oops. I woke my son. They should add that to the dictionary. With the meaning: discernable distance traversable across waterlogged terrain until wellingtons outstay their usefulness and the wearer must resort to waders. :D The tunnel itself is in better condition that I expected. Beatiful stonework and the brick ceilings are an amazing feat of craftsmanship. It's part of my favourite canal, so I am very glad you went back.
Well researched and absolutely fascinating. Thanks
Epic video!
Thanks Sebastian
Super interesting stuff.... and just terrific drone shots too! 👍👍👍
Glad you enjoyed it
most enjoyable video. If I walked through the woods in short sleeves and bare legs the midges would have eaten me alive. Trust you two survived OK.
Brilliant video and top marks for creativity! I've passed through the adjacent railway tunnel a number of times but I think the canal tunnel is more of a feet of engineering as the canal builders didn't have the luxury to vary the gradients which of course the railway builders did.
The canal builders were working thirty years before the invention of the Theodlite, with only the most primitive surveying instruments, yet notwithstanding their constant anxiety about maintaining the "true range and level" managed to make the 3,817 yard long Sapperton Tunnel so straight that it was possible to see right through from one end to the other.
But I just love waffles with butter and syrup! Thanks for showing us the deep shaft in the woods 🌳🕳🌳
Just re-watching because of your new video!
lol I used to live down the road from the canal hahaha 😂 We always got letters through the door saying DONATE TO SAVE THE CANAL TUNNEL!
I think you'd been to donate millions!
The start of the video was amazing, loved the build up! also loved looking down that shaft as well and since i'm on Patreon, cannot wait to watch the unedited version. Great Video, defiantly a like!
There is a book 'The Thames & Severn Canal - History & Guide' by David Venner. The tunnel was operated with a one way system using a timetable. Boats had to be 'legged' and there may have been professional leggers! The wooden posts inside may have been to give the leggers something to push against? Tunnel sticks were not allowed, but probably used anyway. It would take 5 hours eastbound (against the flow) and 3 hours westbound!!!
Fantastic, thank you Nicholas.
Been to the collapse in the middle from both ends, its a fab tunnel.
Tell us more Norris. Can you go end to end or is the collapse to exstensive
No the collapse spans about 100m IIRC. we've been thinking about trying to ab into that section via one of the shafts or do a bit of digging at the less scary end.
Interesting stuff. Lots of work to bring back to use.
The Achiles' Heel of the Thames and Severn Canal was always its water supply. The surveyors who planned its route across the bleak and parched watershed of the Cotswold Escarpment did so during what proved to have been the wettest winter in fifty years and the estimates of how much water could be abstracted from the River Churn near Cirencester proved to be wildly over-optimistic. Although the canal bed was lined with clay (and, later, with concrete) it still leaked like a sieve and the water level at the summit often fell so low that fully-laden narrowboats couldn't get through during a dry Summer.
Hi Paul & Rebbica. Nice video, thanks for going so we don't have to. What would be nice from my point of view would be some more context; a map of the UK showing where you were and another of the canal itself plus some history of it. Who built it, was it a success, what did it carry, from where to where and when did it close? I expect the blasted new fangled iron horse railway things killed it off.
You now have a fantastic opportunity to do some interesting research for yourself now Sir. Your good questions will all be answered out there somewhere, they even give clues where to start.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "six good men and true", Who, What, Where, Why, When and How are ready to lead the way.
Another great video, please keep them coming :)
Fantastic footage down the shaft (tantalizing to wonder what lay beyond that "false bottom") and inside the tunnel portal at the Daneway end. I've visited the Coates portal on numerous occasions (with the odd pint at the pub, back in the day), but never made it to the other end, and wasn't really aware of the number of shafts. Another great video!
The roof is supposedly lined with three courses of brick except perhaps those places where the tunnel goes through solid rock. But even then it might be blocked off just to avoid having debris falling in and blocking the tunnel.
What a brilliant video! To see down one of the airshafts was amazing. Well thought out, and very well done. Thanks to all involved, it was very enjoyable vid to watch.
A very nice pub not too far from the Northern portal..The Daneway!
Another awesome video . Content great, superb incidental music and great editing. What more could you wish for...
Ah thanks Andy
Nice video; I live about 10 miles from Sapperton, will give it another walk soon!
We wish we had time to go further towards Stroud!
Just watched your video whilst it pours down!!. Yet again excellent and............ a bit of builders bum!! 09: 32
Haha... I was about to blur it out!...
Nice dron footage