# Bramhope tunnel north portal



## rikj (May 31, 2006)

From Location Post​

Nice. I hadn't really realised that it was lived in, thought it was more decorative. So, it definately counts as derelict, despite having trains running through it!

Good potted history here:

http://www.bramhope.org/brtunnel.htm

Which is the best way to approach, from the Arthington side, or from the Otley Road?


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## communist daughter (Jun 1, 2006)

definately the otley road way, ive tried both now and the otley road way can take you out right on to the half-bricked up door to the inside of the tower. If you go down the footpath by the air shaft, follow that down to the road and then walk down a bit to the next section of footpath (it looks like its someones drive but it is signposted) and then cross over another little residential street to another footpath that crosses a stream, about 50 yards down it you will see a track through the wood by the stream. Its very very muddy and slippy. Follow that down by the stream and look out for an overgrown little stone bridge on your left hand side over the stream. you should be able to see the portal from the top of the cutting you should be standing on. I would advise you not to go up stairs inside the tower because theres nothing there but a drop anyway...oh and if you do go down to the arthington junction theres a couple of subways under the cuttings and an interested old drain for the stream in one of the fields, i didnt have a torch with me so i didnt go down but i might try and beat you to it anyway...


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## communist daughter (Jun 1, 2006)

Oh and it was definately lived in, looks to have been very cosy. Ive seen that site before, there doesnt seem to be that much written on it otherwise. When we were down there we noticed on the O.S. explorer map we had that there was a tunnel running off from the main bramhope tunnel further along underneath the cutting that you will walk along if you take the route i suggested. Me and ferg spent pretty much all of the afternoon of our first visit looking for a portal to the extra tunnel or any evidence that it was there, but no luck. We also asked lostrailways dave but he hadnt heard of it and said if it was there it was probably for drainage. All i know is i would give my eye teeth to get a look down bramhope tunnel!


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## chottish (Jun 1, 2006)

hiya rikj, the best approach is from the bramhope side on otley road, along the public footpath that runs from the ventilation shaft near the scout hut. as the footpath leaves bramhope itself (at the bottom of the bank), a small path branches off alongside a stream, and it's a few hundred yards along this. The path is a little muddy, but generally it's quite easily accessible. i can message you if you like with a better description.


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## rikj (Jun 5, 2006)

That's sounds fine, cheers ferg and cd. I keep meaning to get some pics of all the air shafts for the tunnel. Found them all on google earth, very strange, just big black ovals that you know go down into the earth. When you go through the tunnel on the train you can just glimpse the light coming down, illuminating switchboxes etc. Curiously one airshaft seems to be capped, the first one out of Leeds I think.

I can't find the other tunnel marked on the OS map. Whereabouts is it marked, and how old is the map? A lot of railway stuff has disappeared off newer maps. I know that a drainage tunnel was built as Bramhope has always had serious drainage problems. I think I saw a reference to a doc in the West Yorkshire archives. I've heard that some people walk through the longer railway tunnels on Xmas day!

Cheers


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## chottish (Jun 6, 2006)

yeah, a few times going through the tunnel i've tried to look up the shafts through the window, you can see the brickwork, and sometimes the train's going so fast it seems like you've seen the sky. it's strange to think that much light is coming through a hole nearly 100m deep. until they completely reengineered the drainage and trackbed a few years ago the trains had to crawl through at half the speed, it's a shame that i only occasionally paid so much attention back then. i've always enjoyed trying to get glimpses of the switchboxes and signal cables from the train lights on the way through tunnels. and i noticed as we were coming back the other day there seems to be a much longer gap between the light gaps at the leeds end.

the map is explorer 297 from 2004 (lower wharfedale and washburn valley). i'm a little unsure whether the marking is in fact a tunnel or an unfenced track as the markings are identical however as it runs directly into the drainage beck it seems perfectly reasonable that it could be a drainage tunel, and there certainly seemed to be nothing in the area that deserved the marking of unfenced track rather than simply a path. it diverts from the main tunnel at a sharp angle just under the last street on the edge of pannal and runs for about 1800 feet under the woods parralel to the main tunnel on the east. there is a sharp ridge along the line which may well be a spoil heap, but we could find no evidence of a distinct entrance as it seems to just run into a wooded hill in the grounds of creskeld hall, which has no obvious signs of being man-made.

i've never heard of anything about walking through tunnels on christmas day in 23 years of local news and papers, but i suppose anything's possible around christmas and new year. we walked all the way up to the old reservoir above todmorden on the edge of saddleworth moor the day after new years day because we heard that people go skinny dipping in it, but after we got up there, found no-one but a rambler walking a dog, and smoking a few fags sat on the stonework and freezing our tits off before climbing back down, we found out that someone had misread the paper and it was the day after.


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