Tar Tunnel, Coalport

In 1797 William Reynolds, ironmaster, drove into the north bank of the River Severn what is now known as the tar tunnel, intended as an underground canal to link his Madeley coal mines to the river. When the bitumen was revealed the tunnel's purpose changed; collected in pools (below), the bitumen was taken out in wagons - 4,500 gallons per week at peak.



This was used to treat rope for the caulking of boats and, in a refined form, made into Betton's British Oil, sold as a remedy for rheumatism. The tunnel is understood to be about 1,200 yards long. The public are admitted to the first 100 yards, the point of the lamp looked back to at top, where there is a locked gate.



The tunnel is lined throughout most of its length, the bricks just one deep, remarkable given the shallowness of the arch, which widens in one part to enable wagons to pass each other. Beyond a solid flood barrier with metal hatch is a section of unlined tunnel. The floor here is particularly clayey, with oil floating atop the water. Bitumen extraction ended in the 1840s, and the tunnel was extended to drain a number of mines. The final section easily explored is in the form of a brick-lined conduit (above).

Snailbeach - Work

Snailbeach was Shropshire's largest lead mine, and reputed to have the highest per acre yield of any lead mine in Europe. In addition to galena were mined barytes, calcite, fluorspar, and zinc. Its oldest parts are Roman - a 193lb Roman ingot was found in 1796 - but large scale mining commenced in the 18th-century.



The Snailbeach Company was formed in 1783. A colliery was operated between nearby Pontesford and Pontesbury, and fed a smelt mill in Pontesford that processed the galena. There are substantial surface remains, many of them clustered around George's Shaft (which descended 750 feet) at the mine site, including a blacksmith's (below).



The workings down to 336 feet were drained by an adit driven from the Hope Valley. Those below, and they eventually reached 1,650 feet, were pumped out to adit level, from 1858 by a Bolton and Watt beam engine - as much as 5,000 gallons of water per hour. Pumping ceased in 1911, and the mine is flooded up to the 112 yard level.



In 1863 the original smelt works was abandoned. A new works was built nearer the mine, a flue running up to the chimney at Resting House. Condensed lead fumes were counted as stock. A good indication of the degree of pollution at the time: in 1872 35 tons of lead were estimated to be in the flue.



Black Tom Shaft, 120 feet, was sunk in the 1820s. The ropes from the winding gear to the headgear scored the shutters of the winding gear's shed (above). A compressor house (top and below) was built near George's Shaft in 1881, enabling the use of powered rock drills.



The new smelting mill was closed in 1895. From about 1900 the spoil tips and upper levels were worked by various companies for barytes, used in paint and barium meals. Underground working finished in 1955. However, when the reactor at Windscale (now Sellafield) caught fire in 1957, Snailbeach was investigated as a source for barytes, the high density of which provides radiation shielding.

Snailbeach - Home

Mining companies generally didn't provide accommodation for miners and their families. However, the landowners, in this case the Marquis of Bath and the Earl of Tankerville, encouraged 'squatting' on their land, as they could then, without the expense of building, secure rent from their workers.



Traditionally, if a stone chimney could be built between sunrise and sunset and be in use before nightfall, then the cottage could be completed. Most were sited in small enclosures, by springs that rose above the level of the mine workings. These, at Blakemoorgate (originally Bleakmoorgate) have been rebuilt by English Nature.



Nearby Lordshill Baptist Chapel was built in the 1870s. The Marquis would not allow a non-conformist chapel on his land, so this was built just over the 'border', on the Earl's. The adjoining house was occupied until recently by a lady in her 90s, unharmed by lack of all the services nowadays taken for granted.

Headless Dowser

Winifred was raised to sainthood as a result of two supposed miracles, both arising from the adverse reaction to her chastity of her suitor, Caradog. He decapitated her, and a spring of magic qualities appeared at the spot her head rolled to a halt. Her uncle reunited head and body, and Winifred went on to be a nun and abbess.



That first spring, St Winefride's Well, is in Holywell, Flintshire, and is a destination for pilgrims. St Winifred died circa 660. In 1138 she was dug up and transferred to, and enshrined at, Shrewsbury Abbey. Henry VIII destroyed the shrine in 1540.



En route to Shrewsbury, Winifred's train halted at Woolston, near Oswestry, where another healing spring legendarily sprung. This is covered by a 15th-century well chapel, later used as a cottage, and now in the care of the Landmark Trust. There are steps down into two stone troughs, presumably used for bathing in the waters, which empty into a lovely stream.

Suburban Shrewsbury

In Oakfield Road is the above Art Deco-esque detached. Across the road, behind the college, are various Shropshire Council buildings, including these offices, possibly of the 1930s.

Aberdovey

The little town of Aberdovey sits on the north side of the Dyfi, at the point the river meets Cardigan Bay. Within Snowdonia National Park, it is centred around a harbour. Shipbuilding was once important here. Tourism is now the key trade, but Aberdovey has not succumbed to tat - some of the shops retain their original frontages.



The Aberdovey Literary Institute, housed in a former bath house and Plymouth Brethren meeting place - presumably not contemporaneous with each other - was founded in 1882 as, from the deeds, "a non-sectarian, non-political place of recreation, education and social intercourse including ... reading rooms, writing rooms, library, billiard rooms, concert rooms ..."

Blasted Telephones

It's one thing to manually remove, with the aid of paint-stripper, three layers of paint from the interior of an aluminium-skinned trailer (see YMGW passim re. Silver Streak Clipper). Alclad is soft and easily damaged, so the only way is the patient way.

It's a different proposition to strip in the same fashion 75 years' worth of thick paint from a pair of K6 telephone kiosks. Media blasting, in this case with glass beads, is the solution. What would otherwise be weeks of work is done in a day. The revealed cast iron is of exceptional quality.

Arley Arboretum

Near Bewdley in Worcestershire, Arley Arboretum was planned around 1800 by Earl Mountnorris. The estate was bought in 1852 by Robert Woodward, and remained in the family until 1959, when purchased by Roger Turner, industrialist and philanthropist. Turner extensively restored both the arboretum and the walled gardens at its centre.

The collection of specimen trees, which surrounds the walled gardens (in which is a rank of pleached limes, above), is considered one of the finest in the land. At about 100 feet, the Crimean pine (Pinus nigra pallasiana), nicknamed "Organ Pipes" (top), is one of the tallest in the British Isles.

The tallest tree in the arboretum, at about 105 feet, is a Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), planted in 1860 (above). That of greatest spread is likely a layered example of a common beech (Fagus sylvatica) which covers a quarter of an acre (below). There are real rarities too, including Wollemi pines (Wollemia nobilis), thought extinct but rediscovered in Australia in 1994.

Pen y Gwely

North of Pen y Gwely Reservoir, near Llethrydau, stands this hangar-like structure. It has concrete ramps at each end, and once had full-height sliding doors, but the landscape is far too hilly for even light aircraft.



That landscape is extremely varied, consisting of forest, moorland, river valleys, and once-harrowed ground now given over to pasture for sheep.

The Other Queen Bess

Bess of Hardwick, ancestor of the Dukes of Devonshire, was the second richest woman in the land, after Elizabeth I. As Countess of Shrewsbury (resulting from her fourth marriage, to George Talbot, the sixth Earl), she displayed vitality, vision and innovation of a high order.

















Bess was born in the early 1520s, at what is now called Old Hardwick Hall. She was estranged from the Earl in 1584, and left Chatsworth House to return home. Between 1587 and 1596 she embarked on a massive rebuilding programme. Old Hardwick Hall rises over six storeys, the most striking features its spacious staircases, large windows, and brilliant plasterwork (that in the Forestry Room was so realistic that birds apparently nested).

































Shrewsbury died in 1590 and Bess's finances improved dramatically. She immediately began the building of the 'New' Hall (below), the English Renaissance work of Robert Smythson (Longleat, Wollaton Hall), and famous as "Hardwick Hall, more window than wall." In the sixteenth century glass was an expensive luxury, and upon its hilltop between Chesterfield and Mansfield the Hall showed off its opulence to great effect.

Kirby Muxloe Castle

The fifteenth-century castle at Kirby Muxloe, in Leicestershire, although never finished, is a superb example of the early use of brick (over 100,000 of them). It was begun in 1480 by William, Lord Hastings, walls, towers and moat accentuating its rectangular form. The work was interrupted after just three years when Hastings, second cousin to and loyal follower of Edward IV, opposed Richard III's seizure of power and was, in consequence, executed.



The Hastings family, descendants of whom still lay claim to the throne despite living in Australia, continued building until 1484, when Lady Hastings abandoned the task. The castle was acquired by Sir Robert Banaster in 1630, but little work was undertaken, and the buildings slid into ruin. The gatehouse and the west tower provide a good indication of just how grand the castle would have been.

Milling About

Either side of the road from Beverley to York, just outside the former, is common land, the Westwood, still used for the grazing of kine. A number of windmills once stood on this common land, and there are remains of three - Union Mill, Westwood Mill, and Black Mill.

Black Mill stands atop the highest point of the common, virtually in its centre. The cap and sails were removed when the mill closed in 1868. It provides though a fine foil to Beverley Minster, which peeks over the horizon.

Castleford, West Yorkshire

Outside grim Castleford's ugly Civic Centre is the working model of Henry Moore's Draped Reclining Figure, 1976-79. Moore was born here. It's easy to see why he left.

Dammed Impressive

Opened in 1970, Scammonden is unique in Britain, the only dam that both holds back the waters of a reservoir (Scammonden Water) and carries on its crest a motorway (the M62). It's reached by exiting at junction 23 and taking the A640 over Saddleworth Moor.

Excavation commenced in 1964, the first task being the removal of 40 feet of soft peat, which characterises the area. The dam has a clay core, and a graded sandstone fill. The overflow bellmouth is rather like that at Ladybower Reservoir, outside Sheffield (YMGW passim). A number of access points enable engineers to enter the dam's bowels.

Motorways take up a lot of space. The dam is 60 yards wide at the top, and 475 yards wide at its base. Its scale can be appreciated by passing through the subway, large enough for a mid-size truck, that runs through the embankment. A club hillclimb track, operated by Mid-Cheshire Motor Racing Club, snakes up the east flank.

Another engineering marvel is nearby - Scammonden Bridge, carrying a B-road over the Deanhead cutting, through which the motorway passes before/after traversing the dam. When built, this was the longest concrete single span bridge in the world, with an arch of 140 yards and a deck of 220 yards.

Sandwell

The 33rd Sandwell Historic Vehicle Show turned up an excellent mixture of classic cars, including the space-age Chevrolet Special pictured above, buses, commercial vehicles, and motorcycles, alongside the usual colourful trappings of the fayre variety.

Guy Motors was founded in Wolverhampton in 1914 by Sydney Guy, who ran the business for 43 years. The company, famous for its buses and trucks, was bought out by Jaguar in 1961, and continued until 1982. The Red Indian mascot originated from an advert of 1924, "Feathers in our cap", which celebrated Guy successes. The feathers of the advert reminded people of a head-dress, and the mascot was born.

The Morris Six was, at the name implies, a six-cylinder, manufactured between 1948 and 1953. The one on show was used as a Chief Constable's car - all bells and whistles!

Dammed Details

The dam to the Booth Wood Reservoir was commenced in 1966 and opened in 1971. Damming the River Ryburn, it's 850 feet high, 1,160 feet wide, and of 148 feet maximum thickness. But it's details at the base of the dam that attract the eye - blocks to break up water flow, V-notch weir measuring gauges, and iron-rich water-staining.



The dam can be reached by turning off the M62 and heading for Sowerby Bridge. By heading back up towards the motorway via narrow lanes, one can reach Ringstone Edge Reservoir (below), high above Huddersfield. Almost entirely encircled by a stone wall, and with a massive earth bank, Ringstone, built 1886, feels very different to Booth Wood. The two wheelhouses are listed.

The Elephant of Hengoed

Selattyn Tower, a folly, was erected on Selattyn Hill, in the middle of a Bronze Age ring cairn, in 1847. During WWII it was used as a lookout by the Home Guard, the hill being the last high point before the Monsanto chemical factory at nearby Cefn.

Below Selattyn is Hengoed, home to Peter Clare and Snowdrop, his home-built petrol engine-powered mechanical elephant. It moves its legs and head, lifts and squirts water from its trunk, and, by means of an iPod, bellows. Snowdrop fills a single-axle horsebox - she had to be loaded to start her journey to a show in Lyon - and can carry six little children.

Showdrop loaded, space opened up to get a proper look at Peter's 1924 showman's van, built in Brighouse, and early 1900s street roundabout - complete with hollow wooden horses, cocks, and other animals.