Milford Tunnel is a double-track railway tunnel on the

Midland Main Line The Midland Main Line (MML), sometimes also spelt Midland Mainline, is a major Rail transport in Great Britain, railway line from London to Sheffield in Yorkshire via the East Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras railway ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

which runs under a hill called the Chevin between Duffield and

Belper Belper () is a town and civil parish in the local government district of Amber Valley in Derbyshire, England, located about north of Derby on the River Derwent. Along with Belper, the parish includes the village of Milford and the hamlets ...

. It was built in 1840 by the Stephensons for the

North Midland Railway The North Midland Railway was a railway line and Great Britain, British railway company, which opened a line from the city of Derby in Derbyshire to the city of Leeds in Yorkshire in 1840. At Derby, it connected with the Birmingham and Derby J ...

. At long, Milford Tunnel was the second-longest tunnel on the North Midland Railway when it was built. The west side of the Derwent valley has a number of gritstone outcrops, one being Burley Hill to the south of Duffield, another being Castle Hill in Duffield itself. The valley here however was too narrow, and already occupied by the village of

Milford Milford may refer to: Place names Canada * Milford (Annapolis), Nova Scotia * Milford (Halifax), Nova Scotia * Milford, Ontario England * Milford, Derbyshire * Milford, Devon, a place in Devon * Milford on Sea, Hampshire * Milford, Shro ...

from which the tunnel gets its name, and one of

Jedediah Strutt Jedediah Strutt (1726 – 7 May 1797) or Jedidiah Strutt – as he spelled it – was a hosier and cotton spinner from Belper, England. Strutt and his brother-in-law William Woollat developed an attachment to the stocking frame that allowed ...

's cotton mills. The name Chevin has Celtic origins, but the hill is often called Firestone Hill, for the spot on which the beacon fires were lighted to rouse the country when peril of invasion or other dangers were imminent.

Description

The North Midland built more ornate portals at the northern ends of its tunnels, while the southern ends were relatively plain. In this case the northern portal is a Saxon-inspired arch, surrounded by seven huge concentric semi-circular rings of stone. The portal is set into a wall of

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

, which has become so overgrown as to be no longer visible.Alan Baxter and Associates in ''World Heritage News,'' Issue 14, 2014, Derwent Valley Mills Partnership The southern portal is to the standard North Midland design. Both portals are

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

, being part of the

Derwent Valley Mills Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site along the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England, designated in December 2001. It is administered by the Derwent Valley Mills Partnership. The modern factory, or 'mill', fact ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

History

The Milford Contract for building the tunnel was let by the North Midland Railway in about October 1837 and completed by June 1840, in time for the opening of the line. The engineers for the route were

George George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

and

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson , (honoris causa, Hon. causa) (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of hi ...

, assisted by

Frederick Swanwick Frederick Swanwick (1810–1885) was an English civil engineer who assisted George and Robert Stephenson. He was responsible for much of the work on railways in the North and Midlands of England, particularly the Whitby and Pickering Railway a ...

. The winning contractor was David McIntosh who tendered £93,122 ()

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

has suggested that the architect

Francis Thompson Francis Joseph Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and Catholic mystic. At the behest of his father, a doctor, he entered medical school at the age of 18, but at 26 left home to pursue his talent as a writer a ...

may have been involved with the design of the tunnel portal, which received more special aesthetic treatment because it faced land owned by the Strutt family, who were in negotiations by the railway, and it could be readily appreciated by standing on an adjacent road bridge. No contract drawings of Milford Tunnel North Portal have been found. Milford Tunnel is included in the drawings for the Milford contract, but this does not show the North Portal as executed. Instead it shows the standard North Midland Railway design for tunnel portals, without specifying the north or south portal. This design was executed at the tunnel's south portal, suggesting that at the time the contract was let, both portals were intended to be the same, and that the northern structure's design as built was a late addition to the contract. When the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 in rail transport, 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had ...

upgraded the line to four tracks south of the tunnel, a signal box was installed to control the junction of the goods and passenger lines, also providing warning distant signals at the north entrance.

Tower

At the summit of the hill there was built a substantial tower, which still exists, the purpose of which has been a matter for speculation. It has generally been thought that it was to check the alignment of the tunnel construction, and was equipped with a rotating telescope. It has been pointed out that such a facility appeared with no other tunnel of the time and there is an alternative theory that it was concerned with supervising the passage of trains through the tunnel. In effect an early experiment with a form of block working, instead of the time interval system commonly used.Huson, S., (2009) ''Derbyshire in the age of steam,'' Newbury: Countryside Books

Sources

*Pixton, B., (2000) ''North Midland: Portrait of a Famous Route,'' Cheltenham: Runpast Publishing *Naylor, P. ''(Ed)'' (2000) ''An Illustrated History of Belper and its Environs'' Belper: M.G.Morris

References

{{coord, 53.00121, N, 1.48737, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SK345450), display=title Grade II listed buildings in Derbyshire History of Derbyshire Rail transport in Derbyshire Railway tunnels in England Tunnels in Derbyshire Tunnels completed in 1839 Grade II listed tunnels

Description

History

Tower

See also

Sources

References