The Lost Canal Tunnel in the Woods. Sapperton.
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2020
- 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!
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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 CZcams. 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 CZcams 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
"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 😂😂😂
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.
Fabulous and interesting as always. Keep them coming. Very enjoyable vlog. Thank you
Fantastic investigation. Marvellous film with a very factual commentary as usual. Thanks for all you did.
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.
Thanks guys, really interesting to see history come alive.
" 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
Well researched and absolutely fascinating. Thanks
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.
Really enjoyed the vblog back in the shire a beautiful day. Looking forward to the Somerset coal canal. 👍👍
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 👍
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.
This is the best of your videos I've seen so far. Editing, soundtrack and production are fantastic. So interesting. 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 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!
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.
"I'm scared!"
Who could resist a proposition like that? 😁
Endlessly fascinating exploration!
Spectacular images, in the tunnel, the shaft and surroundings. I enjoyed it a lot. 🤩
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.
Oh my, I love your channel.
Thank you for your time and efforts to share a mysterious part of our world.
Our pleasure!
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.
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 👍😀👌
Lovely part of the world, you guys do get to see some great places with great history.
Brilliant idea ☺️👍🤠😉 made me happy.. gotta love a curious mind.🐶
Always
One of your best keep em comming 👍😀
Love your videos can't believe how many miles you must cover👍
This is a remarkable video thank you from New Zealand
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
Fantastic video, very enjoyable Guys. Thank you for sharing and keep safe.
Thanks John.
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.
Another great video, please keep them coming :)
"Wellidge" might take a while to get into the Oxford. Thank you both and Garry 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.
Great to think this all coming back into use, providing a canal link from Severn to Thames.
I love this couple. I could watch them all day long......
Ahhh thanks Max.
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
Excellent footage, well done!
I'm surprised by how much I'm learning about canals around Britain. Great work indeed 👍
Us too Nigel!!
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!!
This is better than anything on tv x
Facinating Exploration of a fogotton mode of transport...well worth the effort...well done!!!!
Thanks Richard a fun couple of Days.
Wonderful stuff!
Thanks Chris
Super interesting stuff.... and just terrific drone shots too! 👍👍👍
Glad you enjoyed it
Awesome - loved it!
Love the editing on this, so exciting! :D
Ah thanks for noticing Chris. Much appreciated
Another awesome video . Content great, superb incidental music and great editing. What more could you wish for...
Ah thanks Andy
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.
A real Martin zero experience down that shaft. Exciting 👍👍👍
Absolutely yup.
Good find
Great new video, mild peril, mini Whitewicks and Engineering. 🤪😄👏
Great video guys! I want to get out there and explore this area myself.
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...
Very good video. Love this tunnel. Hope to explore it more soon. Thanks for sharing! 😊
Definitely take a look at the shafts too.
@@pwhitewick will do! Im a patreon as well so ill be checking out the unedited decent!
Fantastic, well done
Thanks Bruce.
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.
quite exciting.. thank you
Probably the best you have ever done ! The caisson underwater was a crazy concept !
Thanks Ford. Very kind.
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.
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.
Fantastic Guys. They really had the terrain against them when this was built. Great Oolite is endemic right along the canal and caused no ends of problems with water proofing and as for tunneling through Fullers Earth, not a lot of fun and again very unstable. There is a section near Cirencester that has, I believe, been removed along with an aqueduct. However this was a really interesting piece. Thanks again, well done...
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.
Fantastic video, lots of ingenuity and adventure :)
ingenuity? what ingenuity has to do with exploration?
@@ThelmaThais1 They put a go-pro camera on a plank with wheels
Great stuff .
Thanks!
Great video more please 😀👍🏻
Great video you pair 😎
Very interesting content and well made too 👏🏻
🙂🍻🥂👍🏻
Thank you.
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!
Ruddy marvellous!!
Told you I would be here!! 😁👍
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!
It was incredibly wonderful, worth the wait. I love it so much. I was wondering if there is more of this, and by the end of the video you just answered it! I'd be happy to see all unedited footage, more from the tunnel's sides too.
Thanks Daniel. Much appreciated.
To drive a canal tunnel through 3,817 yards of Cotswold limestone, and make it so straight that you could see right through from one end to the other, was a considerable achievement for the civil engineers of the 1780's who had only the most primitive of surveying instruments and no explosive more powerful than gunpowder. The summit level of the canal was aligned with an accuracy of one-and-a-half inches in eleven miles!
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 😂
Epic video!
Thanks Sebastian
Great vid liked that adventure 👍
Another great ramble with you both. I remember finding one end of Sapperton with my Dad *many* years ago. In your TITR video, it looks like a bit of very old tram line rail standing up vertical top right of frame when you get to the block. Look again and see if you agree. Something from the construction to help move spoil away from each shaft? And re you point about the people who built this, think of digging that shaft as it it getting pretty damn tight towards the bottom!
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!
Gem of a channel.👍
Ah thank you.
After your quiz question in Feb2021... had to look up the video!
Lovely day for it.
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!
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
Great as always, now your into canal tunnels, you must do Standedge on the Huddersfield narrow canal, when things get back to normal, they do trips in, the whole lengh, we did it last year and enjoyed every minute.
Very tempting indeed
Amazing 😀
Thanks William.
Nicely explored. Pretty basic health and safety measures for "anti shaft falling down"??!!! Gary, top engineer, nearly beaten by the dreaded twisted nylon rope!!! 👍👍
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.
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
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!
Fantastic enjoyed it imensley
Thanks Geoff.
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.
Thank you for another great video.
Seen you with Geoff on a video recently. So I came looking for your channel.
Thanks James, welcome to the channel.
Your awesome!
Really interesting video. That shaft scarred me though 😲
Thanks Judith, to stand directly above it gives you a sense of vertigo and a mnassive appreciation for those that constructed it.
first of all awesome , for me probably your best video to date. I did air vent lowering down camera my self tube video and it is hard especially when you use a camera on a board due to friction. great call out in video to Martin Zero, bet hes chuffed as punch with that . so when you going back to explore it more WHEN WHEN . you got to now , appetites wet and all. maybe sending remote control boat down with camera on ?
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.
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.
Just subscribed, thank you for sharing!
Thanks Brian. Welcome.
What a _beast_ of A tunnel 😲 Goodness!!