Hey folks. Hope you enjoyed today's video. If you aren't already following our social media you can do here: Tw: @PaulWhitewick Inst: @PaulWhitewick FB: @EveryDisusedStation
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 !!!
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.
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 😀
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.
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 😂😂😂
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!
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.
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.
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 👍😀👌
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!!
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!
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I love this couple. I could watch them all day long......
I'm starting to think everything has gone backwards in this world all the beautiful things they hide and remove from us... this is brilliant boots on the ground.
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!
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😊
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.
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...
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.
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
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.
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 😂
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.
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!
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
We would like to see down some more of these deep dark holes, thank you. Not just here but you often come across places like this and we always wonder whats down there, lol.
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!
Nicely explored. Pretty basic health and safety measures for "anti shaft falling down"??!!! Gary, top engineer, nearly beaten by the dreaded twisted nylon rope!!! 👍👍
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.
The walk down the canal from the Bell Inn to the daneway pub has to be one of the nicest in the country , beautiful valley no road or traffic. From the other end you have the Tunnel Inn which is a great pub, where you can walk to what is the source of the Thames (dried up! When I went).
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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!
Another great watch, as said before, better than any TV. I was fully expecting to see deer skeletons at the bottom of that shaft but no ??? First Coc Rover, now Tit Rover, whatever next ?
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.
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.
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!
Always such a delight to see where you are and what you've been up to. You missed an easy "tangled up in blue" gag at 09:03 - but please keep up the good work
Hi Paul & Rebbica. Nice video, thanks for going so we don't have to. What would be nice from my point of view would be some more context; a map of the UK showing where you were and another of the canal itself plus some history of it. Who built it, was it a success, what did it carry, from where to where and when did it close? I expect the blasted new fangled iron horse railway things killed it off.
You now have a fantastic opportunity to do some interesting research for yourself now Sir. Your good questions will all be answered out there somewhere, they even give clues where to start. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "six good men and true", Who, What, Where, Why, When and How are ready to lead the way.
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...
Fishing waders are cheap. Grab a stick/cane, to check the ground in front and go for a walk. The health issue you may have in there is mould. Great video.
Great!! I've always wondered about the tunnel as I have passed it often for work in the area. Now I know more than I ever would have by exploring it myself, thank you! Would it be worth flying your drone along the section of the tunnel which you managed to walk into? Or maybe get Gary to build a boat-mounted camera craft for you!
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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 TH-cam. 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 TH-cam 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
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.
"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 😂😂😂
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.
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.
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 👍😀👌
Brilliant idea ☺️👍🤠😉 made me happy.. gotta love a curious mind.🐶
Always
Oh my, I love your channel.
Thank you for your time and efforts to share a mysterious part of our world.
Our pleasure!
Spectacular images, in the tunnel, the shaft and surroundings. I enjoyed it a lot. 🤩
This is the best of your videos I've seen so far. Editing, soundtrack and production are fantastic. So interesting. Thank you!
" 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
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.
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
Fantastic investigation. Marvellous film with a very factual commentary as usual. Thanks for all you did.
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!
I love this couple. I could watch them all day long......
Ahhh thanks Max.
I'm starting to think everything has gone backwards in this world all the beautiful things they hide and remove from us... this is brilliant boots on the ground.
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!
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.
"Wellidge" might take a while to get into the Oxford. Thank you both and Garry too.
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...
I'm surprised by how much I'm learning about canals around Britain. Great work indeed 👍
Us too Nigel!!
Facinating Exploration of a fogotton mode of transport...well worth the effort...well done!!!!
Thanks Richard a fun couple of Days.
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.
Probably the best you have ever done ! The caisson underwater was a crazy concept !
Thanks Ford. Very kind.
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.
Fabulous and interesting as always. Keep them coming. Very enjoyable vlog. Thank you
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.
Really enjoyed the vblog back in the shire a beautiful day. Looking forward to the Somerset coal canal. 👍👍
Wonderful stuff!
Thanks Chris
A real Martin zero experience down that shaft. Exciting 👍👍👍
Absolutely yup.
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 😂
After your quiz question in Feb2021... had to look up the video!
Someone at 3:34 was making her own jokes up about "talking about shafts". Love the grin. :-)
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!
Love your videos can't believe how many miles you must cover👍
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.
Good find
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
Super interesting stuff.... and just terrific drone shots too! 👍👍👍
Glad you enjoyed it
Fantastic video, very enjoyable Guys. Thank you for sharing and keep safe.
Thanks John.
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!
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
Gem of a channel.👍
Ah thank you.
Another awesome video . Content great, superb incidental music and great editing. What more could you wish for...
Ah thanks Andy
Thanks guys, really interesting to see history come alive.
Fantastic enjoyed it imensley
Thanks Geoff.
Great stuff .
Thanks!
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!
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
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.
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!
This is Pauls favourite Video.
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.
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.
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.
We would like to see down some more of these deep dark holes, thank you. Not just here but you often come across places like this and we always wonder whats down there, lol.
Always a pleasure
Your awesome!
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!
Another great video, please keep them coming :)
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
a big thumbs up to that
Nicely explored. Pretty basic health and safety measures for "anti shaft falling down"??!!! Gary, top engineer, nearly beaten by the dreaded twisted nylon rope!!! 👍👍
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.
Epic video!
Thanks Sebastian
The UK is so awesome so much history I wish it was like that here in Canada
We are lucky indeed.
The walk down the canal from the Bell Inn to the daneway pub has to be one of the nicest in the country , beautiful valley no road or traffic. From the other end you have the Tunnel Inn which is a great pub, where you can walk to what is the source of the Thames (dried up! When I went).
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
Lovely day for it.
Standard summer day down in this part of England.
Great new video, mild peril, mini Whitewicks and Engineering. 🤪😄👏
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
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!
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.
"I'm scared!"
Who could resist a proposition like that? 😁
Endlessly fascinating exploration!
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!
Another great watch, as said before, better than any TV. I was fully expecting to see deer skeletons at the bottom of that shaft but no ??? First Coc Rover, now Tit Rover, whatever next ?
Watch this space
Great to think this all coming back into use, providing a canal link from Severn to Thames.
Amazing 😀
Thanks William.
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.
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.
Fantastic, well done
Thanks Bruce.
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!
Well researched and absolutely fascinating. Thanks
This is a remarkable video thank you from New Zealand
Love the editing on this, so exciting! :D
Ah thanks for noticing Chris. Much appreciated
Always such a delight to see where you are and what you've been up to. You missed an easy "tangled up in blue" gag at 09:03 - but please keep up the good work
Bob Dylan!?
Hi Paul & Rebbica. Nice video, thanks for going so we don't have to. What would be nice from my point of view would be some more context; a map of the UK showing where you were and another of the canal itself plus some history of it. Who built it, was it a success, what did it carry, from where to where and when did it close? I expect the blasted new fangled iron horse railway things killed it off.
You now have a fantastic opportunity to do some interesting research for yourself now Sir. Your good questions will all be answered out there somewhere, they even give clues where to start.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "six good men and true", Who, What, Where, Why, When and How are ready to lead the way.
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...
Great video you pair 😎
Very interesting content and well made too 👏🏻
🙂🍻🥂👍🏻
Thank you.
What a _beast_ of A tunnel 😲 Goodness!!
Fantastic video guys, I'd buy some waders and go further in.👍
Thanks Kim, they are definitely on the shopping list
Lovely part of the world, you guys do get to see some great places with great history.
One of your best keep em comming 👍😀
Fishing waders are cheap. Grab a stick/cane, to check the ground in front and go for a walk.
The health issue you may have in there is mould.
Great video.
Thanks Darren, going again I'm the autumn with waders and a boat!
Great!! I've always wondered about the tunnel as I have passed it often for work in the area. Now I know more than I ever would have by exploring it myself, thank you!
Would it be worth flying your drone along the section of the tunnel which you managed to walk into? Or maybe get Gary to build a boat-mounted camera craft for you!