Shaugh Tunnel Plym Valley Line

[Dave]

Shaugh Tunnel Plym Valley Line July 4th 2010

Amazing, wonderful, fantastic exciting, free, I’m sure I could come up with so many other words to describe the brilliant afternoon Carol and I enjoyed today. My friend Stefano is so right there are so many things to still discover in Devon even at our age and thanks to the power of the internet I learned this morning about Shaugh Tunnel on the disused Plym Valley railway line that went from Plymouth to Tavistock and back.

I was looking for a new walk to do today and I came across someone’s blog about the cycle ride he did along the Plym Valley line and he had put up a few pictures that he took along the way. When I saw the picture of Shaugh Tunnel I just knew that was the place I wanted to go this afternoon.

The only problem was I was unable to find out where on the line the tunnel was exactly and so I spend some more time searching the internet and came across a page that featured a walk that would go through the tunnel. That walk started with a bus ride to Bickleigh Camp and then a short walk to pick up the Plym line and walk it to Yelverton where you would catch a bus back to Plymouth.

Not what we would have been looking to do but it did say the walk went over the Ham Green Viaduct, through Shaugh Halt station and then through Shaugh Tunnel. Once again there was no real information about how far along the line the tunnel was and as far as we knew it could have been much closer to Yelverton than Bickleigh where we were planning to start from.

We set off from Paignton and were a bit concerned about the weather because it was raining lightly and we feared it would get much worse. I said to Carol that we won’t let a little drop of rain ruin our afternoon out and while it got a bit heaver for a while, it never got to bad and so we were able to complete our walk without really getting wet.

We headed for Plymouth and took the Tavistock road just after you get over the Belliver roundabout there is a turning on the right up a lane that is sign posted to Bickleigh. I never knew there was such a large camp at Bickleigh, well its better to say the camp is Bickleigh and a few other people live there. We were a bit unsure if we could park on the road outside the camp, but there are no lines or any signs to say you can’t and so that’s where we parked.

You then walk downhill away from the camp and village ignoring the turning on the left hand side signposted Shaugh Prior and just walk down a short but steep hill for a hundred yards or so until you come to a bridge. Go over the bridge but make sure you turn right down a path at the end of the bridge and then at the bottom of that path turn a sharp right again onto the Plym line and you will then pass under the bridge you just crossed over.

The railway line was opened on the 22nd June 1859. Shaugh Halt opened in 1907. The line was nationalised as part of British Railways in 1948. Passenger services were withdrawn on 31st December 1962. Freight services ceased and the line closed completely, in 1964

I will warn you that you need to watch our for cyclists, some who seem to think it’s a race track and thankfully as it got later in the afternoon they all seemed to have gone home and left us to enjoy our walk in safety.

So now we are on the line and have no idea how far we are going to have to walk to get to the tunnel, our plan was to walk the tunnel and then head back the way we had come. I’m not sure how far we did walk in the end but it was a few miles for sure and the good news is that the walk is mostly flat and no to hard on those ageing leg muscles.

After some time we came to the Ham Green Viaduct, its 174m long and 28m high and was originally a timber construction, the present 6 arch structure dates from 1899.There are places all along it where instead of the brickwork is a gap with rails and you can step up and look over the viaduct, if you look over the right-hand side you can see the stone piers of the original timber viaduct ( see my pictures) The viaduct is curved and I wonder why that is as when I took a good look on the way back, it looked to me there was no reason why it could not have been built straight.

The line is mostly in woods and it must slowly climb higher without you really noticing it as when you get to Shaugh Halt Station you can see a road down over the hillside. The station is built miles from the nearest village and was only built as a stopping point for the nearby Shaugh Bridge that was a very popular day out destination for Plymouth people. The station was opened for passengers in 1907 on the site of a works siding used during the construction of the tunnel. This was also the point where dried china clay was loaded from the Shaugh Bridge plant.

The tunnel is not that much further after Shaugh Halt Station and as soon as I saw the entrance I was getting really excited. There are grave tales about murders that took place in the tunnel at the turn of the century and tales of the ghosts that haunt the tunnel, thankfully a few years ago bat friendly lights were installed in the tunnel as I really would not have fancied walking it in complete darkness.

The tunnel is 328 yards long and curved meaning at no point anywhere inside the tunnel can you see both ends of it and Carol and I were completely alone during our walk though it. Now I don’t want you lot calling me a scaredy cat but I had to say to Carol a number of times “what was that noise” as believe me there were some strange noises coming from somewhere from time to time. You also get treated to some nice big drops of water falling on your head as the roof of the tunnel leaks in places.

Eventually you start to see light as you round the last part of the bend inside the tunnel and then it’s out that end and turn around and head back to Bickleigh. At the entrance you came in at look above and you will see a cast iron aqueduct that carries a leat over the line. I forgot to say that the tunnel was designed by Brunel.

When we got back to the very first bridge that we crossed over to get to the line Carol pointed and said “ I never noticed that when we crossed over the bridge earlier” the last picture shows what Carol was on about, take a look and see if you can see what she was on about. I will put another picture up tomorrow that is a close-up shot

[Dave]

I came up with the rather mad idea of having a works cycle ride, mad mainly because I have not ridden a cycle for over 45 years. I decided it would be good to ride from Plymouth to Tavistock along the old railway line that is now a popular cycle route. Its a 35 mile ride and not all of it is along the old track bed, there are some parts where you have to use the road.

I was very keen to do this ride as there is a new section that has recently been opened and on that part you go through Grenofen Tunnel that was bought for just £1 and you also go over a newly built viaduct that cost one and half million pounds to build. Along the whole route you must go over at least six viaducts but one was blown up by the army many years ago as an exercise. The new one is not brick built and is some 30 feet lower than the original one, but it has made it possible to ride along much more of the old railway line.

I gave up smoking over five months ago after smoking all my adult life and it was a good job I did as I would never have been able to complete the whole ride. I did do some training before the ride and got out on the bike as often as I could. To be honest I found riding a bike again much harder than I expected.

But I found the ride not as hard as I expected on the day and really enjoyed it so much I plan to do a few more longer rides this summer. I videoed the whole ride and plan to make a highlights film when I can find the time, but I wanted to make a short one featuring the two wonderful tunnels you ride through.