Moseley Green Tunnel at The Black Mountains

Background

Deep in the heart of the Forest of Dean there lies the 503yard Moseley Green tunnel. Built as part of the ‘Mineral Loop’, the line connecting Severn and Wye railways with Great Western’s lines, this was a single track tunnel built to transport coal and iron ore from the deep mines of the forest. It was completed in 1872 and closed after just 79 years of service in 1951.

Visiting

This is a very easy tunnel to find and access, being close to the road. On the road between Parkend and Yorkley, there is a junction where a road turns off north to the Rising Sun Inn. From this junction, to the south, a stone pepperpot can be seen, this is the top of the southernmost air shaft of the tunnel. A little way up this northbound road, there is a left-right chicane; at this point the road crosses to the tunnel. On the right of the road, the opposite side to the Rising Sun Inn, is a gravelly area where people park to head off on their forest walks. From here, walk south and you’re in the cutting virtually straight away, and the tunnel’s north portal can be found very soon thereafter.

Condition today

This is an excellent little tunnel to visit, as it has some very interesting features. Firstly, there are three air shafts. Approaching from the suggested direction you will find the northern air shaft first, which has an alarming chunk of masonry below it, I believe this is from a destroyed pepperpot on the surface. I would not have liked to have below that when it fell down! This, and the central air shaft do not appear to be very deep, and seem to be capped now with corrugated metal. The southern air shaft is also capped with metal, but a quarter of it is missing and the light comes flooding down here.

At the southern end, if you feel like squeezing out through the hole in the brickwork, you’ll find an old shell of a building, now roofless and overgrown. A good photo of it during it’s heyday can be seen here. There are also large stacks of sleepers piled against the walls at the southern end.

By far the most striking feature, and quite unexpected, were the eight-spoked braces about half way along. As we proceeded down the tunnel, we became aware that the light from the other end was filtering through a large web of some kind, but until we were very close it was not obvious what it was, due to the large amount of mist in the tunnel. Thankfully, a giant spider was not to blame for the obstruction. Very sturdy wooden beams have been erected, reaching outwards to thick metal ribs that circle the tunnel, and they are joined in the middle with metal plates. Rumour has it they were put up in the seventies when a very heavy load was being transported along the road above; I personally think the tunnel’s deep enough that this wouldn’t matter, and that the road surface would pulverize before the tunnel was affected, but they are certainly in just the right place to be under the road.

There are about a dozen, spaced only a few feet apart, and climbing through them is somewhere between exploring the lower decks of a galleon and being a contestant on the Crystal Maze. Some of the braces are badly burned; I guess someone wanted to see if they could make it collapse, just for a laugh. This is the kind of behaviour that gets tunnels gated and fenced up, and rendered inaccessible for the rest of us