Sherwood Rise Tunnel - 665yards
Opened in 1898 Sherwood Rise Tunnel was part of the Great Central Railway from London Marylebone to Sheffield routed via Leicestershire, initially the first traffic to use the route was coal and general freight with passenger traffic starting in 1899, Unfortunately most parts of the GCR route were subject to closure during the Beeching cuts in 1968 and became the first mainline to suffer this fate. Trains approaching from the north would pass through New Basford Station then into a substantial sandstone cutting before entering Sherwood Rise Tunnel and at it’s deepest was 120ft from trackbed to surface, after leaving the tunnel train crew would have a short 100yard cutting before disappearing into the darkness of the 1,189yards Mansfield Road Tunnel which took trains into Nottingham Victoria Station which has long since been demolished. Sherwood Rise tunnels construction is for the most part yellow sandstone walls with a brick roof spanning between the natural stone walls, there’s several standard sized refuges with two more substantially sized ones, some sections of wall are brick I’d assume these were weak spots in the sandstone. The tunnel walls, roof and floor are extremely heavily sooted from the barrage of steam and diesel locomotives that once thundered through... Today the tunnel stands forlorn and hidden away from public view, the northern end buried to within 5ft of the top coping stones with steel plates covering the visible section of portal, and the southern end is totally infilled with access via a manhole cover on an industrial estate in the Nottingham suburbs.. there’s also a secondary brick & block wall with a tiny access hatch at the southern end which was in place long before the concrete plug was constructed during remodeling and regeneration in the area, Nothing much noteworthy left inside other than some cast iron brackets that would have carried signaling wires and some wooden troughs fitted for most of the tunnels length, I’d hazard a guess these would’ve supported newer signaling cables probably installed in the tunnels later years? there is what appears to be be a short / small signal bracket / arm which appeared to once have been attached to the wall within the tunnel. We did find some litter... a Mars wrapper dating from 1986, a No Frills crisp packet with a date of 1999 and a Cherry Coke can from 1989...as far as I can see the tunnel hasn’t been visited since 1994 by a chap called James....
Thanks for looking everyone, Hope it’s been worthwhile...
Now on to the next.....
Opened in 1898 Sherwood Rise Tunnel was part of the Great Central Railway from London Marylebone to Sheffield routed via Leicestershire, initially the first traffic to use the route was coal and general freight with passenger traffic starting in 1899, Unfortunately most parts of the GCR route were subject to closure during the Beeching cuts in 1968 and became the first mainline to suffer this fate. Trains approaching from the north would pass through New Basford Station then into a substantial sandstone cutting before entering Sherwood Rise Tunnel and at it’s deepest was 120ft from trackbed to surface, after leaving the tunnel train crew would have a short 100yard cutting before disappearing into the darkness of the 1,189yards Mansfield Road Tunnel which took trains into Nottingham Victoria Station which has long since been demolished. Sherwood Rise tunnels construction is for the most part yellow sandstone walls with a brick roof spanning between the natural stone walls, there’s several standard sized refuges with two more substantially sized ones, some sections of wall are brick I’d assume these were weak spots in the sandstone. The tunnel walls, roof and floor are extremely heavily sooted from the barrage of steam and diesel locomotives that once thundered through... Today the tunnel stands forlorn and hidden away from public view, the northern end buried to within 5ft of the top coping stones with steel plates covering the visible section of portal, and the southern end is totally infilled with access via a manhole cover on an industrial estate in the Nottingham suburbs.. there’s also a secondary brick & block wall with a tiny access hatch at the southern end which was in place long before the concrete plug was constructed during remodeling and regeneration in the area, Nothing much noteworthy left inside other than some cast iron brackets that would have carried signaling wires and some wooden troughs fitted for most of the tunnels length, I’d hazard a guess these would’ve supported newer signaling cables probably installed in the tunnels later years? there is what appears to be be a short / small signal bracket / arm which appeared to once have been attached to the wall within the tunnel. We did find some litter... a Mars wrapper dating from 1986, a No Frills crisp packet with a date of 1999 and a Cherry Coke can from 1989...as far as I can see the tunnel hasn’t been visited since 1994 by a chap called James....
Thanks for looking everyone, Hope it’s been worthwhile...
Now on to the next.....
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