Survey Data
Reg No
31208019
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Technical
Original Use
Tunnel
Date
1890 - 1895
Coordinates
98444, 293635
Date Recorded
04/08/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Railway tunnel, dated 1892; opened 1894; extant 1897. Closed, 1934. Reopened, 1936. Closed, 1937. Now disused. North: Tuck pointed snecked rock faced sandstone battered wall with cut-limestone stringcourse on "Cavetto" consoles supporting parapet having rock faced cut-limestone coping centred on tooled cut-limestone date stone ("1892"). Single horseshoe-profile tunnel with drag edged rock faced limestone ashlar voussoirs. Sited spanning uprooted railway line with unkempt embankments to railway line.
Appraisal
A tunnel identified as an integral component of the late nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of Newport on account of the connections with the extension of the Mayo Branch of the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) line (opened 1894) by the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) Company with the architectural value of the composition, a neo-Egyptian "Gate", confirmed not only by the rock faced surface finish offset by sheer limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the curvilinear profile of the arch making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the long-uprooted railway line.