TOP-SELLING author Joanne Harris visited Standedge canal tunnel for the first time to open a renamed function room in the visitors' centre.

The Almondbury-based writer cut the ribbon on the Thomas Bourne Room at the centre on Waters Road at Marsden yesterday.

Joanne, who has lived in Huddersfield for five years, said: "The room and the centre generally are really nice and well organised.

"This is my first time down here at the canal. I can't imagine why it's taken me so long to come here.

"I shall certainly be back here soon with my husband and daughter."

The writer, whose novel Chocolat was turned into a box office hit film, also travelled through the tunnel on a glass-roofed boat with the winners of a children's poetry competition.

Corrie Leader, 10, of Holmfirth and eight-year-old Maja Adam, from Huddersfield, were judged the best of 20 entrants in the contest.

Joanne said: "They obviously have talent. Their poems were sweet and charming."

Corrie and Maja wrote about the 19th-century tunnel worker Thomas Bourne.

Back then horses pulled boats as far as Tunnel End.

Two men then 'legged' the boats through the narrow tunnel, lying on their backs on top of the boat and walking along the wall.

These gruelling trips took four hours.

Meanwhile, Thomas Bourne led the horses over the tops along a moorland trail to where the canal emerged at Diggle.

The Marsden man made this trip four times a day between 1811 and 1852, covering 215,852 miles - the same as walking eight-and-a-half times round the world.

Standedge Visitor Centre is open until November 2, with seven daily guided boat trips through the country's highest, longest and deepest canal tunnel.

For more information call 01484 844 298.