Visited with my father @Bertie Bollockbrains
Hawthorns Tunnel, also known as Euroclydon Tunnel after the large house built on the grounds above it, is an S-shaped 638-yard long tunnel built for the Mitcheldean Road & Forest of Dean Junction Railway which was completed but never fully opened.
During the Second World War, the Admiralty used the tunnel for the storage of depth charges, torpedoes and mines from the Royal Ordnance factories at Swynnerton and Glascoed. The facility was remotely managed from Malvern but operated by a team of around a dozen men. To assist with the work, a narrow gauge railway was installed on the east side of the tunnel - laid on a concrete floor - whilst racks were built on the opposite side, supported by steelwork sitting on concrete plinths. Lighting was also provided throughout. For protection, the site was enclosed by steel fencing, with guards on duty around the clock, accommodated in huts at both portals. The existing blockwalls are actually blast walls, erected as part of the conversion. Munitions were brought to site on a regular basis by trains of seven or eight wagons, and offloaded in a large transfer shed outside the tunnel before one of two battery-powered locomotives hauled them in to the storage area.
Just inside the entrance is a brick blockwall with a pair of steel doors, preventing access into the main part of the tunnel. The lining is stone: rubble-faced up to springing level, but dressed above. Pink Tintern Sandstone is revealed between discrete collars of stonework. The profile and alignment of the tunnel is quite variable which is perhaps indicative of constructional difficulties. There are no open shafts but, given the tunnel’s length, one or more hidden shafts cannot be ruled out. Refuges are provided in both sidewalls; some are built in stone, others in brick. At one point, an opening provides access into a chamber which presumably would have been used by the platelayers as a rest room and storage facility had the line ever opened.
1. Admiralty locomotive rusting outside
2. Viewed from the rear
3. Initially the mist was extreme in here, photography as good as impossible
4. Carts inside
5. A second locomotive lies inside protected by a sheet of tarpaulin
6. Cable reel
7. The mist decreased as we ventured further in
8. Cart where the track ends
9. The northern half the tunnel lacks the track
10. Views of the tunnel, the floor is often lined with concrete and the walls intermittently switches between stonework and exposed pink sandstone
11. Assumed to be radiators?
12. A small crane at the north portal
13. That's me that is
14. Blockwall at the north portal
15. The north portal
Thanks for looking
Hawthorns Tunnel, also known as Euroclydon Tunnel after the large house built on the grounds above it, is an S-shaped 638-yard long tunnel built for the Mitcheldean Road & Forest of Dean Junction Railway which was completed but never fully opened.
During the Second World War, the Admiralty used the tunnel for the storage of depth charges, torpedoes and mines from the Royal Ordnance factories at Swynnerton and Glascoed. The facility was remotely managed from Malvern but operated by a team of around a dozen men. To assist with the work, a narrow gauge railway was installed on the east side of the tunnel - laid on a concrete floor - whilst racks were built on the opposite side, supported by steelwork sitting on concrete plinths. Lighting was also provided throughout. For protection, the site was enclosed by steel fencing, with guards on duty around the clock, accommodated in huts at both portals. The existing blockwalls are actually blast walls, erected as part of the conversion. Munitions were brought to site on a regular basis by trains of seven or eight wagons, and offloaded in a large transfer shed outside the tunnel before one of two battery-powered locomotives hauled them in to the storage area.
Just inside the entrance is a brick blockwall with a pair of steel doors, preventing access into the main part of the tunnel. The lining is stone: rubble-faced up to springing level, but dressed above. Pink Tintern Sandstone is revealed between discrete collars of stonework. The profile and alignment of the tunnel is quite variable which is perhaps indicative of constructional difficulties. There are no open shafts but, given the tunnel’s length, one or more hidden shafts cannot be ruled out. Refuges are provided in both sidewalls; some are built in stone, others in brick. At one point, an opening provides access into a chamber which presumably would have been used by the platelayers as a rest room and storage facility had the line ever opened.
1. Admiralty locomotive rusting outside
2. Viewed from the rear
3. Initially the mist was extreme in here, photography as good as impossible
4. Carts inside
5. A second locomotive lies inside protected by a sheet of tarpaulin
6. Cable reel
7. The mist decreased as we ventured further in
8. Cart where the track ends
9. The northern half the tunnel lacks the track
10. Views of the tunnel, the floor is often lined with concrete and the walls intermittently switches between stonework and exposed pink sandstone
11. Assumed to be radiators?
12. A small crane at the north portal
13. That's me that is
14. Blockwall at the north portal
15. The north portal
Thanks for looking
good to see other youngens doing urbex!
