Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Tyler Hill Tunnel, Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, constructed 1826-30 and opened May 1830. Some late-C20 repairs following areas of collapse.

Monument Types

• RAILWAY TUNNEL (RAILWAY TUNNEL, Post Medieval to Modern - 1826 AD to 1953 AD)

Full description

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TR 143595 Tunnel (disused). (1) TR 143595, TR 140602. Tyler Hill tunnel on the diused Canterbury-Whitstable line is the oldest railway tunnel in the country, having been opened in the spring of 1830. The tunnel goes under Christchurch College, the south entrance being in the college grounds. The north entrance can be reached from a footpath. The line was closed at the end of 1952 and the tunnel is now boarded up at both ends and is believed to have collapsed in the middle. (2)

From the National Heritage List for England:

856/0/10013 ST STEPHEN'S HILL
24-DEC-07 Tyler Hill
Railway tunnel, including north and south portals, under Tyler Hill (former Canterbury and Whitstable Railway)

II*
Tyler Hill Tunnel, Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, constructed 1826-30 and opened May 1830. Some late-C20 repairs following areas of collapse.

MATERIALS: Red and yellow brick with dressed stone to the northern portal.

EXTERIOR: South portal: Red brick round-headed arch of header and stretcher courses and brick piers. North portal: Yellow brick elliptical arch of four header courses, splayed buttresses with tooled ashlar blocks as terminals to buttresses and parapet.

INTERIOR: Brick tunnel 757m in length to accommodate a single-tracked railway, on a gradient of 1 in 56. Southern end: a standard arched vault with parallel side wall construction largely of alternating stretcher and header courses. Soot blackening evident. Surviving pedestrian refuge. Northern section: not inspected due to infilling but known to be elliptical in form.

HISTORY: The Canterbury & Whitstable Railway (or CWR and affectionately known as 'The Crab & Winkle Line') was a pioneering early railway, representing an intermediate stage between early mining tramways or waggonways, and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, which was the prototypical modern main line railway. Proposals for its construction were put forward in 1823 by William James, and a Parliamentary Act obtained in 1825. Construction had begun by 1826. William James was an ambitious early railway engineer and entrepreneur, but his career is marked largely by bold schemes which were rarely seen to fruition. James lost his position here to George Stephenson, who assumed control of the works by 1826. The six mile long line was opened on 3rd May 1830, linking Canterbury to a specially constructed harbour at Whitstable. The line carried both passengers and freight from its inauguration. It became especially popular in the summer months for seaside excursions to Whitstable's Tankerton Beach as noted in W J Cox's 'Guide to Whitstable and its surroundings' published in 1876.

Trains were hauled along the length of the railway by a combination of horses, ropes operated by fixed engines, and a locomotive (George Stephenson's Invicta which lacked sufficient power for the steeper gradients). The line was taken over by the South Eastern Railway in 1844, the track relaid and the method of propulsion changed to locomotive operation throughout. Passenger traffic on the line ceased in 1931, and the line closed entirely in 1953.

Little survives of the original Canterbury & Whitstable Railway. Some sections of the track bed remain but building or engineering remains are sparse. The Tyler Hill tunnel is an important remnant of this early railway line. Trains were hauled through the tunnel by rope haulage from a fixed stationary steam engine. Following an exceptionally wet summer in 1838 cracks and signs of subsidence were noticed at the northern portal. In order to stabilise it the crown of the arch was stripped, a concrete puddling applied, the parapet was lowered to improve drainage and the angled buttresses were added to reinforce the whole. From the onset of South Eastern Railway operation in the 1840s, the tunnel posed a problem due to its restricted dimensions, such that only specially adapted locomotives could be used. However, it was never rebuilt to accommodate larger trains. Collapse of the northern part of the tunnel in the 1970s led to its partial infilling.

The Tyler Hill tunnel is important for being the first tunnel to appear on what is, at least partially, a prototypical modern railway. This tunnel is one of the most significant progressive features of the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway, representing the inception of a more ambitious scale of railway building, in which railways were to be provided with major engineering features to ensure straight, well engineered routes, so as to provide transport links to match those of canals and turnpike roads. The Tyler Hill tunnel can claim to be the first modern railway tunnel in history, albeit by a narrow margin, for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened just four months later in September 1830, including on its route a longer, double-tracked tunnel at Edge Hill in Liverpool. Tunnelling on an ambitious scale would become a striking feature of the major early railways of the 1830s, notably the London and Birmingham and the Great Western railways.

SOURCES:
Canterbury City Council, 2000, Canterbury and Whitstable Railway Conservation Area Appraisal.
Hart, B, 1991, The Canterbury & Whistable Railway. Wild Swan Publications Ltd, Didcot
Jessup, F W, 1995, A History of Kent. Phillimore: The Darwen County History Series.
Simmons, J & Biddle, G, 2003, The Oxford Companion to British Railway History. Oxford University Press
www.crabandwinkle.org

REASON FOR DESIGNATION DECISION: The Tyler Hill Tunnel on the Canterbury & Whistable Railway is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

* It is a substantially intact and very early structure from the pioneering days in the development of the passenger railway;
* Although modest in their architectural form, the two distinct portals and distinct tunnel forms are a physical manifestation of experimentation in early railway tunnel construction;
* Albeit by a narrow margin, it is the world's first modern railway tunnel on the first passenger steam railway and as such merits listing in a higher grade for its more than special historic significance. (3)

Historic England archive material: NRI01 National Record of Industrial Monuments (NRIM): Index Cards This material has not yet been fully catalogued. Copyright, date, and quantity information for this record may be incomplete or inaccurate.The collection consists of topographically arranged index cards and copies relating to individual monuments and county lists of monuments associated with the National Record of Industrial Monuments (NRIM) between 1963 and 1980. The NRIM was set up by the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) in 1963 and administration was taken over by the University of Bath in 1965. Record cards for individual buildings were completed by interested parties and submitted. Sets of cards were maintained by the CBA, University of Bath (latterly the Industrial Monuments Survey) and the National Monuments Record.In 2012 the collection was updated by Heritage Data and where appropriate monuments were allocated a county designation number.

<1> OS 1:10000 1984 (OS Card Reference). SKE48170.

<2> Ind Arch of South England 1979 30 (AJ Haselfoot) (OS Card Reference). SKE44261.

<3> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Sources and further reading

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