Over the years, I have slowly been filling in my sight-seeing of the old GCR mainline. One big gap remained; that of Woodford-Halse to Rugby. Myself and a fellow GCR enthusiast ('A') decided to join forces and explore this quite remote, and yet spectacularly engineered section of the line. This webpage is a record of what we saw. It's certainly not comprehensive, but captures most of the interesting archaeology that remains.
The Red Lion, Hellidon. Comfortable rooms, quiet and clean, well-kept Real Ales (mostly Greene King, I think), hearty pub-food and fry-ups in the morning to fuel many happy hours of clambering through post-industrial rosebay-willowherb infested wildernesses! Rather conveniently, the pub is just off the centre-line of Catesby tunnel.
A brisk ten-minute stroll East from the Red Lion brings you off the public road and on to a bridleway where you get a good view of the northernmost breather (4) for Catesby Tunnel, counting from the South. There are no further ones north (a good mile away) until the Northern portal because the owner of Catesby House didn't want his idyllic view ruined: this indeed is the main reason for the 2997yd tunnel as the rising ground is shallow enough for a GCR-style steam-shovel dug cutting (on an albeit monumental scale).
A second view of the same breather (4). Note the spoil heaps of excavated material. Obviously out of site of Catesby House!
The next breather south (3) is hidden in a little copse which has grown on the surrounding spoilheap.
Further south still, breathers (2) and (1) line up in this quite dramatic view. These and the spoiheaps give a tangible impression of the scale of the engineering structure hidden underground. The top of the Southern portal of the tunnel is just behind the right of the picture. This is still on a public footpath.
We seem to have lost our way off the public footpath and have accidentally ended up at the Southern portal! There is a sturdy metal grille over the entrance, but the gate is open. Unfortunately, the cutting here is rather a nasty swamp and you have to weave a sinuous path to get a good footing. A has had the good sense to wear wellies.
A decides to investigate more closely. It was rather a relief to find the inside of the tunnel relatively dry.
Time to prepare for a voyage into darkness. Miraculously, A and myself had packed hard-hats, hi-vis waterproofs and I'd bought a high-power battery lantern with new batteries. (You never know when such emergency items might be useful.) Anything waterproof was going to prove to be a good idea later, particularly towards the Northern portal.
There's enough of daylight here to appreciate the high quality of the elegantly arching brickwork. This end is dry because the line (I think) is heading downhill Northwards, away from Charwelton summit. The contrast between the light and warmth outside and the darkening chill inside is palpable. There was a breeze coming through from the North end... was it an oncoming Windcutter!?
A few minutes of echoing syncopated yomping over the random debris on the tunnel floor (most of the ballast has been removed) and you reach the base of breather 1. By this time, your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. Daylight from up above reaches down here in a vertical shaft of moonlight strength.
You can see the pool of light at A's feet. Water was raining down around the edge of the ventilation shaft and you could hear the cascade audibly from a distance. I think that there are the remains of a circular gutter and drainpipe which have failed, as I can't imagine that Douglas Fox, the civil engineer would have allowed this. A is looking at one of the still-existing wooden covers of the central drain, whose blockage later has caused the tunnel to flood.
Looking up the ventilation shaft at breather 1. You have to admire the ingenuity of the bricklayers in how they have joined two cylinders of brick together seamlessly, in candlelit darkness and wet. I think that we are about 70 feet deep here; really very shallow for a tunnel of this length.
Looking up the ventilation shaft at breather 2. The contrast seems to have made my cheap Olympus digital camera optics act up. We are a little deeper here. Looking closely, you can see ferns & foliage growing around the open top and also raindrops from around the periphery (it was dry in the middle).
A is now looking down the broken central drain cover underneath breather 2. There is a deep hole, which is a big danger to anyone walking the tunnel. In the hole you can see quite a little River Styx heading North, Warwickshire-bound, on a definite gradient. (I think that both the celebrated Cherwell (south to Oxford) and Nene (west to Peterborough) rise on the land above).
I believe that this is the base of breather 3, with the expected moonlight shaft and circular cascade of rain. Also another missing draincover, partially filled and surrounded by demolition debris. I managed to catch some of the falling water in the camera flash.
Light at the end of the tunnel. At the last breather (4), it was time to take stock of how far we had come. This view is looking South. The portal is still clearly visibly, but it seems a long way away now.
The view looking North. The thumbnail looks completely blank, but if you click on the picture, you'll be able to make a few pixels of white in the far distance: the North Portal. Of course, it's naturally obscured as it's facing North and is shrouded by a jungle. This is a re-assuring fact about Catesby that in spite of its length, it is dead straight, in comparison to some curved bashable tunnels (e.g. Torpantau, Wales, springs to mind).
Breather (4) was the most dramatic, and deepest. The downpour was so intense that I couldn't stand in the middle without putting my camera in danger. However, this side shot really brings out the elegance of the brickwork, including a brick gutter at the base of the shaft. It brings to mind Bazalgette's work on the London sewers.
A thinks that a Windcutter is due and settles into a refuge! There are many of these, but intruigingly two large shelters or bothies, where stuff could be stored and or maintenance workmen could possibly rest between whiles. The yellow markings to A's right are recent evidence of inspection work by British Rail property holdings, who still have responsibility for the tunnel.
Another broken drain cover / deep hole revealing the River Styx below breather (4)'s ventilation shaft. From this point, all of this water starts to make its presence felt. The sound of cascading water was quite loud here, and being so far from either end, you feel quite cut-off from the world above.
A is at the Southhernmost of the pair of 'bothies', near breather (4). There is some storage wreckage at the back. It would be quite possible for half-a dozen men to sit down here and have their 'snap' like miners, though the air quality with passing trains would be quite foul. Note the precision of the brickwork. I noted from another bashing website that the Merthyr tunnel in South Wales has a bothy like this with an internal chimney!
Catesby tunnel passes through the limestone / ironstone watershed of the Northamptonshire uplands, and this has reacted with the water coming into the tunnel. At this point, there are extensive iron-stained tufa formations on the tunnel walls which has welded and coated the remaining ballast on the tunnel floor quite beautifully... indeed I took a lump as a souvenir paperweight. You can also make out the Southern portal in the distance.
The River Styx! The water here flows across the breadth of the tunnel with quite a current. In a number of places, demolition debris has dammed the flow into large sinister lagoons occupying the whole tunnel width with narrow shores that have to be negotiated with care. We could have done with Charon and his ferry! Unfortunately, the camera flash was too weak to capture it, but the large lake at the Northern portal later gives a clear impression. We are looking toward the Southern portal; still visible as a dot of light.
After a number of these lagoons you reach the Northenmost bothy, in which myself and A are standing. Obviously 'AB' had lost their way from the footpath and arrived here five years ago, like us. They had got out as we didn't see any skeletons lying about. I was feeling peckish and decided to have some of my picnic to express solidarity with tunnel workers of yore. A was more focussed on a pub lunch and pint of beer by now.
You can have too much of a good thing, and so it was quite a relief to make out the Northern portal and also some detail such as the metal grille over the end, and some of the jungle in the cutting leading up to it. The Styx flows all over the tunnel floor here, with fewer lagoons.
Here you can see the Styx flowing into one final swansong lagoon. At last, we could get back into warmth and daylight after 45 minutes underground. The door on the metal grille was open, but over the middle of the lagoon. It would be a challenge to get past without getting one's feet wet.
It's easy enough to get to the grille because the tunnel has a natural shoulder on either side, but it's very narrow. The shadow on the far right is A starting his exit
... and on his way out. Fortunately, the grille is made of L-shaped flanges, and on one side, you could use the base of the L to place your feet above the final lagoon. On the other side outside, there were miraculously placed improvised stepping-stones to take one back to dry land on the cutting side. Placed by AB?
The lagoon from the outside, with some of the stepping-stones visible. It's not really that deep, less than a foot, though this was September when the water-table would have been quite low. I would not want to have made the journey in March!
Somehow, the drain in this cutting was working and the Styx largely disappears. The Northern portal is almost completely obscured by mature foliage; the jungle is at its peak at this time of year.
Further down, the portal is (or perhaps I should say was) framed by this quite famous bridge (with a stone parapet dictated by the imperious owners of Catesby house) which has a large gash in it where it was once struck by an errant steam crane. The whole cutting is reverting back to a wild wood. We're not so far from civilisation as in the fields on the right are chalets from the Hellidon Lakes development. I wonder how many occupants realise that they are priveliged to live next to this shattered marvel?
Back on a public right of way to Hellidon. A classic GCR pair of forlorn blue-brick abutments frames A as we head back up the hill to the Red Lion for lunch. This is the first time that I have done a circular country walk from a pub that has been virtually circular in vertical cross-section!
With the land falling away, all of the spoil from Catesby tunnel must have been useful for creating the embankment towards Catesby viaduct, in the middle distance. Beyond, the land rises again which the GCR penetrates with a deep cutting before crossing the next valley on the long demolished Staverton viaduct (which we missed out off our tour).
Part of the 12-arch Catesby viaduct from 35mm film, taken on a GCR safari in 1999. It must now be one of the longest and highest of the surviving GCR viaducts after the recent demolition of the structures through Nottingham. It has serious structural problems with spalling of the brickwork at corners (probably through frost damage penetrating the pointing) and must be in peril. It has survived because it towers over only private farmland and infant River Leam.
At Lower Catesby is this delightful and cared-for chapel, next to a complex of rural buildings obviously owned by well-heeled SUV & green-wellies set (well, this is the Stockbroker belt for Rugby / Coventry). Checking in my Collins Guide, it said that it was a Victorian rebuild with good Jacobean furnishings.
At Braunston, the Oxford Canal meets the Grand Union Canal and there is a fascinating complex of canal archaeology, including this pair of supremely elegant cast-iron footbridges which I remember appearing in Eric de Mare's atmospheric "Bridges of Britain" book.
In between the bridges, we see the Grand Union Canal heading away Westwards and the towpath takes us along to the former crossing with the GCR in about half a mile. On the day we visited, the canal saw a fair amount of leisure traffic. It's a pity that leisure use couldn't have kept the entire GCR infrastructure intact.
"Another brick in the Wall". A picture for fans of Prog Rock! Rarely are one's railway archaeology safaris lightened by graffiti with a real sense of occasion. The site of the large plate girder bridge where the GCR crossed the Grand Union, looking South. The route is nicely framed by the somewhat redundant metal overbridge in the middle distance. Someone has also thought it a nice place to moor up for the night.
Heading North from this point takes you on to the high embankment towards the site of Willoughby Viaduct. En route you cross a typical GCR brick-arch underbridge still with its metal handrails intact. This area is open to concessionary public access and forms part of a nature reserve.
Looking South from the end of the embankment. The plate girder overbridge is on the South side of the Grand Union Canal.
The site of the 13-arch Willoughby Viaduct, one more arch than Catesby. The other embankment is quite far off and gives you the sense of how large this rather remote structure was, whose loss is not as widely mourned as Brackley. I'm not sure why this one was demolished with indecent haste, compared to Catesby, but the site has been well tidied-up. A few courses of remaining brickwork were discernable on the riverbank using binoculars.
The site of Willoughby Viaduct is in the top right of this picture, viewed from the side. The Northern approach embankment is now completely wooded and any indication that there was a mainline railway here obliterated.
Half a mile South of the Grand Union Canal, in a corner of a hummocky field (the remains of an abandoned Medieval village) and hemmed in by the LNWR Rugby-Leamington & GCR lines is Wolfhampcote Church. Now in the Churches Conservation Trust, it's a remarkable survivor owing partly to the involvment of Sir John Betjeman. I find it hard not to combine railway bashes with church crawls: as the Revd Awdry said "They are both the best way to get to a Good Place".
For a change, we could do some GCR bashing on public-footpaths. From the Southern outskirts of Rugby (near Rainsbrook Farm) to the 'birdcage', the GCR is a public right of way and is quite heavily used by locals for walking their pit-bull terriers, and ASBO-brigade getting up to jolly japes with substances / air-rifles / each-other! The first landmark is the deep Dunsmore cutting, South of Rugby Central station.
The huge 3-arch skew bridge carrying the B4429 over Dunsmore cutting, showing off the spirals of brickwork in the arch barrels. Carrying a public road, I expect that this bridge is regularly maintained and pointed. It's civil engineering like this that make me a particular fan of the GCR.
The end of the platform at Rugby Central, looking North. The whole area is densely forested with saplings, and is designated as a nature reserve. "And quite where Rugby Central is, does only Rugby know. We watched the empty platform wait, and sadly saw it go": Betjeman. The actual trackbed is deliberately flooded to make a wildlife pond area.
A stands on the platform looking towards the overbridge and site of the former booking hall / staircase down. On the left you can see a pond-life observation deck put in somewhat optimistically by the local council.
The road overbridge has been very well patched up with blue-brick to make up for the huge hole left by the demolition of the booking hall and staircase. The booking hall, propped up at the top of the staircase looked like quite an atmospherically light and airy setting to wave farewells and give greeting embraces.
Pond-life indeed! The local residents have created their own public art installations on the flooded trackbed below the platforms. A shopping trolley in a foetid swamp may well be the only starter home that many key-workers can afford these days.
Underneath the Station overbridge, the light and vistas were rather good and so I took some photos showing the construction detail. Local graffiti artists have added their own splashes of colour. Note how the bridge deck is made from turning long, narrow arches between the main bridge beams.
Another vista through the arches of the central pier: presumably the arches helped to communicate between either side of the island platform.
"Sponsored by Railtrack" reads the dedication by this splash of Urban Art! Every GCR fan will know this to be the end of the famous "birdcage" bridge over the LNWR mainline: two large lattice spans. It has never been demolished because of the disruption that it would cause to the electrified West Coast Mainline, and also because it is structurally sound. I read that it has recently been passed as fit for mainline traffic!
The best side view that I could get of the "birdcage" was from an adjacent road bridge. This shot captures the Northernmost of the two spans. There is a huge yawning gap from here to the North where more metal spans, an arch viaduct, a massive embankment and then the 4-span Oxford canal viaduct have all been erased. The GCR can be picked up again as a footpath on the other side of the Avon valley towards Newton.
On the Sunday morning after breakfast, the weather was rather nice and we decided to go for another country stroll. Oh deary me, didn't we lose our way off the public footpath and stumble back on to the GCR near the Southern portal of Catesby tunnel?! This is the cutting heading South looking towards the site of the water troughs, ironstone quarry sidings and Charwelton Station.
This is about the clearest view that you can get of the Southern portal these days with encroaching vegetation. Even the famous datestone reading '1897' is obscured.
With a good morning light, it was possible to take a photo straight through to the Northern portal 1.7 miles (2997 yards) away.
A whole new meaning to the phrase "What a bore!". The same view just inside the tunnel showing the natural brick shoulder, which could mark the original level of the ballast through the tunnel. I don't know what the glinting reflection on the left is, unless it is some supernatural manifestation
Base of breather (4) ventilation shaft showing up the brick guttering and penetration of daylight. Tunnels are very good at altering your perception of light, solid and space, like early Romanesque cathedrals.
Looking South at breather (4), with A emerging from the darkness. In my enthusiasm, I must have walked on a bit.
Then of course, we had to battle the Styx, the Black Lagoons etc. etc. until the Swansong Lagoon at the Northern portal. Much easier than the previous day since we "knew the road" much better. A is visible in the dark shadows on the right!
The way out, from a different angle. If there was an obstacle, the sacrificial loud splash of A into the Styx would give advance warning!
The most iconic image for Catesby Tunnel these days; the 1897 Northen portal datestone, which is the same date as the one for the Southern portal.
A more detailed view of the Northern portal, including the grille and a completely illegible "Dangerous Structure etc." sign to warn people who, like us, aren't very good at following legal rights of way without getting (from a bashing perspective) fortuitously lost.
Standing on some debris off the shore of the Swansong Lagoon, it was possible to take this picture straight through to the Southern portal.
Having lost our way in such spectacular fashion, the most responsible action was to find our way back to the right of way as efficiently as possible, and so we walked all of the way back to the Southern portal! Here we are back on the footpath, with one last view of breather (1) in Autumnal light. One weekend, and over five miles of underground walking were quite enough, by now!
It's fascinating to do a keyword search on 'Catesby Tunnel', or 'Willoughby Viaduct' at the superlative website Railway Archive: The Last Main Line which has brought the Newton Collection (chronicling the construction of the GCR) out of the vaults and into the public domain. For instance, there are dozens of shots of the construction of Catesby tunnel's ventilation shafts.