# Lydbrook Tunnel, Coppet Hill



## godzilla73 (Aug 23, 2012)

We'd spent the morning of day two of our trip to the forest hiking up and over Yat Rock looking for a way in to Symonds Yat East tunnel. As it transpired, this little excursion turned out to be one for which the term "epic fail" was probably invented, owing to a combination of exceptionally bad map reading by myself, and a 1 in 4 climb through a pretty unforgiving hill. However, the afternoon brought us better luck with a stroll along the banks of the Wye to this beauty, which at 700 odd yards, was the longest of the three tunnels we explored. It was also curved (which had Fluffy creaming his pants at the opportunity to light paint in complete darkness - its what he loves mostest, dont ya know!) but extremely wet, especially at both ends.

This is at the river end from outside and in...

















Lots of interesting stuff inside....


























We had a good go at taking some interesting tunnel shots in here, including a bit of a mess around with some light painting. Fluff's are probably better than mine, but here goes....

















There's more interesting stuff outside too, including this sunken (Type 26 variant?) pillbox, the remains of a signal column, and of course the rickety old footbridge, which really did look as if it was about to collapse at any moment. This had originally been the rail bridge into the tunnel.

























































A good way to finish the trip, all in all!
Thanks to Fluff for doing the research, and to mini-Fluff (or should that be Maxi- Fluff? He is over 6ft tall?) for helping out in all sorts of useful ways, and not moaning about having to put up with my (and his dads!) two day BS session.....

Cheers for looking
Godzy


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## Winch It In (Aug 24, 2012)

Cracking set of pic's, nice bonus with the pillbox.


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## night crawler (Aug 24, 2012)

Great stuff, was not sure about this at first but the tunnel looks great and the old bridge and to top it off a nice little pillbox. WHat more can you ask for. DOn't supprise me anout Fluffy Jnr, lets face it Fluffys is not short.


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## flyboys90 (Aug 24, 2012)

Cracking shots of the tunnel.


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## TeeJF (Aug 24, 2012)

Nice tunnel! I do enjoy wandering through a good tunnel!


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## Black Shuck (Aug 24, 2012)

TeeJF said:


> Nice tunnel! I do enjoy wandering through a good tunnel!



Oh so do I. Loving the lightpainting guys, made a great job of that. I don't think many people quite appreciate how dark it is in these places. Now for the techno geek bit. Camera measurements please?


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## crickleymal (Aug 24, 2012)

Did you see the air raid shelters in the grounds of the old Cable factory just up the track from there?


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## godzilla73 (Aug 24, 2012)

Black Shuck said:


> Oh so do I. Loving the lightpainting guys, made a great job of that. I don't think many people quite appreciate how dark it is in these places. Now for the techno geek bit. Camera measurements please?



Oooh - you'd have to confirm this with the mighty Fluff , but i think we were on ISO 100, aperture of f5.6 and a 30 sec exposure. The real hard work was done by maxi-fluff though, who had the onerous task of walking up and down the tunnel swinging his torch in front of him like a windmill. As he said himself "it's a good job that no-one can actually see me in here!"


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## godzilla73 (Aug 24, 2012)

crickleymal said:


> Did you see the air raid shelters in the grounds of the old Cable factory just up the track from there?



There was a cable factory? With air raid shelters? Doh! (Where was this? So we can stick it on the list for next time!)


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