Beaminster Tunnel opened on 29th June 1832. It is reckoned to be the only pre-railway road tunnel in the country still in use. The tunnel was built to take the road under Horn Hill thus avoiding a 1 in 6 gradient which was particularly difficult for horse-drawn traffic. Teams of horses were required to pull the wagons and carts up and over the hill.
Engineer Michael Lane on this project also worked with the Brunels on the Thames Tunnel linking Rotherhithe with Wapping. Lane rose from foreman bricklayer to become one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s most trusted assistants because of the quality of his work. He almost lost his life when the Thames Tunnel flooded. Michael Lane later became Chief Engineer on the Great Western Railway.
The tunnel was opened with much ceremony with the day being regarded in Beaminster, according to the Dorset County Chronicle, as something of a holiday. Promoter of the project was local solicitor, Giles Russell who raised £13,000 by public subscription.
Celebrations began at 8am with a 21-gun salute fired from a battery on Horn Hill. At 10am a Grand Procession formed which included bands from Beaminster and Bridport, dignitaries from Beaminster and local towns, ‘ladies and gentlemen in around 60 carriages’, 100 visitors on foot followed by a further 200 on horseback. Then followed the many tradesmen who had worked on the project and the labourers who had excavated the tunnel carrying shovels and pick axes. Prominent in the half-mile Grand Procession was the project’s promoter Giles Russell. The tradesmen and labourers were paid the price of a day’s work together with a two and sixpence (12.5p) bonus.
One of the workmen, William Aplin was killed during the tunnel’s construction. He was removing earth from beneath a precipice when a portion fell on him by which he was killed on the spot.
On the arrival of the Grand Procession at the tunnel another 21-gun salute was fired and the bands played ‘God Save the King.’
Forming ‘one of the most enlivening spectacles ever witnessed in this part of the county’, the Grand Procession returned to the town. Dinners were provided at nearly all the inns in Beaminster and the White Hart Inn top table of about 70 sat down to a ‘very superior dinner.’
A fair was held throughout the day on Horn Hill and the day concluded with a firework display and the ascent of a hot-air balloon from the top of Horn Hill. At the time only a few such road tunnels had been built. In commemoration of the opening, Tunnel Fairs were held on Horn Hill regularly on Good Friday up until the 1880s. Originally Beaminster Tunnel was lit by oil lamps. They were maintained by a lamplighter who lived in the toll house at the north end of the tunnel.
Not many people may know this but in a Tunnel Sound Index, Beaminster Tunnel was rated the third best tunnel in the UK through which to travel!
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