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Following on from our adventure on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, this video is a mainly real time cruise through the Standedge tunnel. This is our tribute to all of the navvies and others that designed and built this remarkable tunnel. Thanks to volunteer Trevor for all the information he imparted and for guiding us through the tunnel. We had arrived at Marsden on 6th October, the following day we walked down to the tunnel entrance, had a coffee in the little cafe there and a walk around the visitor centre. The centre is free to enter and tells the story behind this amazing feat of engineering and why it became the the worlds most expensive canal tunnel. If you don't have a boat the centre runs boat trips through the tunnel, either 30 mins or the full length trip of 2.5 hours at £5.50 and £28.00 respectively, with family tickets and concessions.
We also took in the circular walk from the visitor centre experiencing some lovely views across the moors. We had our passage booked the following day so a little later in the day we moved the boat down to outside the cafe and topped up with some water ready for the following day. At around 0830 Trevor, our volunteer guide through the tunnel arrived. He advised us to remove as much as we could from the roof, so off came our barge poles and gang plank, our chimney and navigation lights. We removed our pram and catch cover completely as we did not want to damage it. Trevor also measured from the water level to the highest point of the boat but it materialised that we were in fact 2 inches too high for the tunnel. As we had both had showers the previous evening there was a little bit of space in our water tank so we topped up with more water which solved the problem. We were advised to wear waterproof coats as in some areas where the air shafts were located water streamed through. We donned hard hats and high visibility jackets which were supplied and set off into the tunnel on a fascinating experience.
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August 2021
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