Deep under the Pennines is the Standedge Canal Tunnel. A new book about the three-mile marvel has just come out. Here ANDREW BALDWIN reveals what it’s like to sail from Marsden to Lancashire

‘One of the most extraordinary tourist experiences to be had in the north of England’

DEPENDING on your viewpoint the people who built Standedge Tunnel were either mad or admirably ambitious.

It is the longest canal tunnel in the country, burrowing for three miles through and 638ft under the Pennines, that windswept barrier which sits between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Some say the project should never have been started; and they were almost proved right when construction took a full 15 years after being started in 1794.

It took a little bit of help from renowned engineer Thomas Telford to produce the marvel of 18th and 19th century engineering.

Sadly, the tunnel was abandoned in 1944 when the Huddersfield Narrow Canal closed to regular traffic.

A huge restoration scheme brought the canal back into use in 1991, but Standedge Tunnel remained a problem.

Passage for boats was so difficult that it was only permitted in British Waterways convoys, which have to be booked in advance and travel only on Wednesdays and Fridays between Marsden and Diggle.

That remains the position today and the difficulties have meant the canal has yet to fulfil its true potential as a Mecca for the boating fraternity.

Writer Andrew Bibby went for a ride on one of the flotillas for his remarkable new book The Backbone Of England, an account of a journey walking the Pennine watershed from Kinder Scout almost to Hadrian’s Wall..

It took three hours to get a five- boat convoy through the tunnel.

Bibby writes: “What you do not need to do, I learned, is to put the lightest boat at the back of the flotilla, where it can thrash around like a fish’s tail, banging into the sides of the tunnel and bringing the whole system of boats to halt.

“No, you carefully size up each of the boats, working out the best position in the chain for each, covering them and padding them so that even if they do hit the tunnel side there will – hopefully – be no damage done.”

There are some boats where the risk of taking them through Standedge is just too great. They get turned away.

The speed is likely to be one mile an hour, but problems happen when boats get stuck and have to be freed.

The trickiest moment comes halfway through, where the tunnel reaches a sharp S-bend. This was created because of a discrepancy of 26ft when the two ends of the tunnel were joined.

What you do as a passenger during the three hours or so inside the tunnel is peer ahead into the gloom, says Bibby. A trance-like state came over him after two hours, he admits.

“I was grateful I wasn’t having to stay alert, driving the electric tug or fending off the boats behind. My brain seemed to close down,” he writes.

But it makes sense to have escorts when you see some of the tight squeezes which have to be navigated, says Bibby.

The slowness of the journey through the tunnel is a problem which British Waterways is well aware of. They believe they have now come up with a solution which halves the travelling time.

Testing this year has shown that it is feasible for diesel engines to be operated in the canal tunnel for routine operations and this has enabled a rethink on how boats can be taken through.

Under possible new proposals for the 2009 season British Waterways will pilot individual boats through the tunnel, which will mean a faster and more flexible turnaround for customers.

Laurence Morgan, general manager for British Waterways in Yorkshire, says: “We carried out a number of trials this year with a diesel tug operation to establish definitive information about potential problems with noxious fumes, test welfare and emergency responses as well as our control of the tunnel operations.

“The tests showed that gas emissions inside the tunnel were not a cause for concern and it may be possible to reduce the time taken to go through the tunnel down to 90 minutes.

“Moving on from this we are now considering a piloted operation of customers’ own boats by British Waterways trained qualified staff.

“This will be far better than the very complex operation we have at present, which demands a shadow vehicle travelling in the neighbouring unused railway tunnel.”

Irrespective of the time it took, Andrew Bibby was hugely impressed with his trip deep under the Pennines.

“Surely one of the most extraordinary tourist experiences to be had in the north of England,” he says.

Finally emerging from Standedge after three hours underground he caught a bus back to Marsden. It took 10 minutes.

The Backbone of England, by Andrew Bibby, with photographs by John Morrison, is published in hardback by Frances Lincoln at £20.