Archived Report - 28/04/07: Hinksay Tunnel, Telford

[cat_bones]

Met up with Ysirf, Scrappy and their mate S to have a look at the old tunnel in Hinksay, Telford. The tunnel connected to an old ironworks, nothing much of which stands anymore. No-one seems to have much of an idea for what the tunnel was used for - if it was a transit tunnel of some sort, it would appear on old maps as most of the stuff round the area is very well documented; it seems way to big to be part of some part of the iron making process.

Getting in for the other guys was easy enough - I thought I was slim but I could only get through the gap in the bars (some-one had sawed on through and bent it back) after Scrappy engineered a way in without causing any further damage to the bars or surround! Nice work!

I was worried about getting my camera wrecked in there tbh so apologies for the fact that most of the pics are a bit crappy - I'll get the hang of it in the end!

View from inside the tunnel looking out...


Inside there's lot's of shoring holding up the ceiling, although it seems sound enough... at this point...



There are airshafts (or some sort of shafts) in a few places along the tunnel - all but the first one have been filled with crap from the EverReady factory that once stood above it, and the crap has nearly blocked the tunnel in several places.

The first shaft had dirt piled up underneath it, almost to the top of the tunnel, meaning there was a small crawl to get up into it...

Inside the shaft...


The crawl out of the other side of the shaft with some nasty sharp bits of metal to get snagged on...


One of the nicer sections of tunnel that didn't require wading through...


Another blockage - you can just see the hole we had to crawl through to the right...


There were a few flooded sections in there which were pretty muddy and took quite a bit of picking a way through without getting bogged down. I was glad I'd bought waders! Ysirf & Scrappy ; as clever as your homemade ones were, you should have bought your dinghy really!! Lol


After climbing through another tiny hole created by tonnes of concrete being tipped down a shaft... loads of re-inforcing bars to jab into us.. we got as far as is possible. There's another blocked shaft (or maybe a collapse?) with a thin strand of daylight breaking in but we couldn't see up to surface unfortunatley.

The roof in this section is pretty bad though...


And then we went back. I attempted to exit without applying Scrappys genius idea and nearly killed myself - not a nice feeling getting your ribs slowly crushed by big metal bars! Cheers again scrappy for your help there!!

All in all, a good trip but not one for anyone with claustophobia... and my ribs ache!