The Basingstoke Canal, certainly not one of the big hitters when one thinks of England’s canals - I think Grand Union, Kennet and Avon, Leeds and Liverpool… even the Manchester Ship canal springs to mind, but no not Basingstoke, always a backwater.
These hand dug trenches, the muscle to move goods to a burgeoning British economy of the late 18th century. In just 50 years the metal road, steam powered locomotives would upstage these graceful waterways. This tunnel, like many others built at a similar time, did not feature a towing path, the boatman ‘legging’ it from entrance to exit, a practical means of propelling the hefty cargo without the use of motor or horse drawn power. 19th century watermen would lay on their backs and simply push their feet along the tunnel’s roof, gently pushing the boat through.
It would not be til 1870 that a tug would do the hard work and pull boats through, not before a form of tunnel protectionism took hold at many of these portals, whereby local men would force boatmen to pay for them to leg-it through.
The Greywell tunnel opened in 1794, a portal into a dank subterranean world, now depleted of boats and cargo, housing now an altogether bigger and busier congregation of bats. The UK’s largest roosting population. I’d forgo the busy barges to let these beautiful creatures thrive and that is exactly what has happened, rather by accident than by design, as the tunnel at some midway point collapsed many years ago. Two low key portals stand guard at either end, but for the boatman there is now no way through. In fact there is no way through to Basingstoke these days as the M3 has put pay to that particular journey, severing the canal during the 1960’s. It was only a matter of time ‘til the tunnel gave way to complete the job.
Nowadays narrow boats do an about turn a quarter of a mile before the portal, leaving the rest for ducks, algae and pond skaters.