Severn Tunnel

The Severn tunnel of 1810 was an unsuccessful plan for a tramroad tunnel beneath the River Severn. The tunnel was to cross the river at Arlingham Passage, at a location between Newnham on Severn and Bullo Pill on the west bank, to the promontory near Arlingham on the east. The intention was to take coal from the expanding Forest of Dean collieries. The proprietors of the Bullo Pill Railway Co. had already, in September 1809, completed the Haie Hill tunnel. They acquired the rights to an existing ferry crossing at Newnham Ferry and began construction of the tunnel, from the West bank. This tunnel was to carry road traffic and horse-drawn coal wagons on the tramroad. The bore was to be 13 ft high and 12 ft wide. This tramroad would have been built to match that already constructed onshore, as a four-foot gauge plateway with L-section cast iron rails. The tunnel was authorised by the Severn Tunnel Act 1810 (50 Geo. 3. c. cxxiv). Work began and the tunnel was extended well under the river. On Friday 13 November 1812 water broke into the tunnel. The tunnel was immediately flooded, and the workmen all managed to escape. Unlike the flooding of the later Severn Tunnel, this flooding was too much for the rudimentary pumps of the day and so work was abandoned. In 1845, the engineer James Walker prepared a report, River Severn and South Wales Railway, on Brunel's plans for railway bridge

Tunnel data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).