Inside What Was the World’s Longest Railway Tunnel Alex Watkins & Max Jones It may look like nothing more than a black hole but when it was built this curved stone arch was a major feat of engineering because it was the longest rail tunnel in the world. The Haie is one of many railway tunnels running through the hillsides of the Forest of Dean which was once a hive of industrial activity. It was built so that horse-drawn wagons could haul the coal, iron and stone hewed from the ground to the docks on the side of the River Severn. Once considered ahead of their time, the mouths of these tunnels now are often fenced off, bricked up or hidden in the undergrowth waiting for an ever-growing band of enthusiasts to discover them. People like Alex Watkins, 23, from Whitecroft and his friend Max Jones, 20, from Lydney who decided to spend lockdown seeking out the abandoned tunnels which were once at the cutting edge of the industrial revolution. Their list included the 1,083yard Haie tunnel, which was built in 1810 for the horsedrawn Bullo Pill tramway that went from the hamlet at the side of the Severn to Soudley. It was later enlarged for broad gauge by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and is said to be the oldest tunnel ever to be used by passenger carrying trains. These days it’s not that easy for anybody who is not in the know to find the tunnel that eventually closed in the 1960s and which was said to have been a shortcut for Bullo Pill children to reach their school at Soudley. According to local legend the children had to carefully time their walks to avoid the trains that hurtled through the tunnel near Newnham which is on a steep gradient. But, during lockdown, Alex found some old railway maps and worked out by the gaps where the tunnels from the three main railways in the Dean would be so that he and Max could go exploring. Their first outing was fruitless because the tunnel entrance near the Rising Sun pub at Moseley Green near Parkend was completely bricked up and impossible to get inside. But they were luckier with the Haie tunnel which comes out near Soudley and were thrilled to be able to climb in and walk the tracks that once would have once transported stone, iron and coal to the tidal inlet at Bullo Pill. 32
GREAT WESTERN STAR MAGAZINE
Alex Watkins in a tunnel in the Forest of Dean
“It’s quite hard to get into and you can only do it from one side,” said Alex who was a maintenance engineer at Tenco in Cinderford until the pandemic when he was made redundant. “From the inside it looks just like any other tunnel but, when you see how deep it goes under the hillside, you realise the ridiculous amount of work that would have gone into making it back in the day. I don't get frightened of the dark and I’d worry more about being out in Gloucester on a Friday night than being in a railway tunnel, but you can imagine how creepy it must have been if the kids really did walk through it to get school.” Haie, also known as the Bullo Pill tunnel, held the longest tunnel record for six years until it was taken by the Pwll Du Tunnel near Blaenavon which was an astonishing 1,875 metres long. These days the record is held by the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland which is over 35 miles long. But the records do not bother Alex and Max who say they have no fear of the 18th century structures collapsing or running out of air despite being hundreds of years old. “For us it’s the thrill of finding them rather than what is inside,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the entrances in the woods and they are partially or completely bricked up. Then you have to find a way of getting inside. I'm not sure if that's for health and safety reasons but I am not worried because they are manmade rather than natural structures. Once you are inside there’s not much to see but a few drips of water, mineral deposits and lots of spiders. A bat flew past me once but that’s about as exciting as it gets.”
January/February 2021
