Dudley Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Dudley Canal Line No 1, England. At about long, it is now the second longest canal tunnel on the UK canal network today. (Standedge Tunnel is the longest, at , and the Higham and Strood tunnel is now rail only). However, since the Dudley Tunnel is not continuous this status is sometimes questioned: (the main tunnel is , Lord Ward's tunnel is and Castle Mill basin is ).
In 1959 the British Transport Commission sought to close the tunnel but this led to an Inland Waterways Association-organised massed protest cruise in 1960. The tunnel was however closed in 1962; and was further threatened with permanent closure by British Railways who wished to replace a railway viaduct at the Tipton portal with an embankment and a culvert. However, this never happened as the railway was closed in 1968 and the disused bridge demolished in the 1990s.
The tunnel was reopened in 1973, as a result of restoration, which had been a collaboration between local volunteers (originally the Dudley Canal Tunnel Preservation Society, later the Dudley Canal Trust), and the local authority, Dudley Borough Council. The opening ceremony was advertised as "TRAD 1973 – Tunnel Reopening at Dudley".
The Dudley Canal and Stourbridge Canal then looked at an extension northwards from Dudley, to join the Birmingham Canal. This would involve a long tunnel, and Lord Dudley and Ward agreed to sell his branch canal and tunnel to the company. The enterprise was authorised by another act of Parliament, the Dudley Canal Act 1785 (25 Geo. 3. c. 87), obtained in July 1785, which was steered through the parliamentary process by Lord Dudley and Ward. He was thanked for his efforts, but the company argued that he received sufficient benefit from the convenience of the Dudley Canal and the favourable tolls awarded to him, that payment for his branch canal should not be made, and it never was. The Dudley Canal Act 1785 authorised the company to build five locks to the north of their existing canal, to reach Parkhead, and a long tunnel to link up with Lord Dudley and Ward's Castle Mill Basin. The route was surveyed by John Snape and John Bull, and was checked by Thomas Dadford. He then became the consulting engineer for the project, while Abraham Lees supervised the day-to-day work. In September 1785, the company announced that the tunnel would be wide, the water would be deep, and there would be headroom of .
John Pinkerton, one of a family of respected canal contractors, was awarded the contract for construction of the tunnel, but it was the first time he had worked on a tunnel, and he hit problems, first with the quality of the ground he was trying to excavate, and also with the large volumes of groundwater that he encountered. There were complaints about his lack of progress and the poor quality of the brick lining, resulting in him being dismissed in 1787. He had to pay £2,000, which was an amount agreed as a bond when the contract was awarded, after which there was an interlude, while arguments were resolved. The tunnelling was then supervised by Isaac Pratt, one of the Stourbridge and Dudley committee members, with Abraham Lees continuing as resident engineer. In May 1789, there were more difficulties, when it was realised that the tunnel had deviated from its proper line in several places, and that progress was slow. Isaac Pratt ceased supervising the work on 30 May 1789, and Josiah Clowes was employed as engineer from early June, aided by John Gunnery. Gunnery died in December 1791, and a newspaper article announced that the tunnel he had been working on was complete. The work included a stop lock in the tunnel where it joined Lord Dudley and Ward's basin, and a new straighter section and junction with the Birmingham Canal at the north end. The new junction opened on 6 March 1792, but the tunnel was not formally announced as being complete until 25 June.
Operation
The stop lock in the tunnel did not last for long, and was removed in December 1795. There were initially complaints, because the tunnels were used by limestone boats working the quarries, as well as being a through route. Normal passage was often obstructed by boats loading limestone at Charles Starkey's Quarry, by empty boats blocking the tunnel, and by full boats blocking access to the stop lock into the Birmingham Canal. Such complaints ceased after 1799, presumably because more space was made for the limestone boats, and their organisation was better regulated. More serious was that the tunnel was affected by mining subsidence, and the regular closure for repairs damaged trade. The company employed their own Inspector of Mines to keep on top of the situation. Boats could pass in one direction for four hours, and then the direction was reversed, but in 1830, the time allowed was reduced to three hours, with a penalty imposed if the time was exceeded.
With threats of competition from the proposed Stourbridge, Wolverhampton and Birmingham Junction Canal in May 1836, the company looked at ways in which passage through the tunnel could be improved. They decided to enforce a by-law that required each boat to have a crew of two men to propel it through the tunnel, and a number of boatmen were called to account for non-compliance. The Dudley Canal's superintendent, Thomas Brewin, suggested that cable haulage could resolve the issues, but the cost of the system at £6,000 was deemed to be too expensive. Despite the commercial difficulties, the tunnels were very popular with sightseers, and poetic descriptions of its operation appeared in Luke Booker's Dudley Castle, published in 1825, and W Harris's Rambles about Dudley Castle, published in 1843.
Having completed the Dudley Tunnel, the company did not rest, but pressed on with another ambitious extension, linking the southern end of the tunnel to the Worcester and Birmingham Canal passing through the Lapal Tunnel near Selly Oak. This was completed by 28 May 1798, and the original canal and tunnel became known as the Dudley Canal Line No 1 or the Dudley No 1 Canal, to distinguish it from the new venture. The Birmingham Canal, known as the Birmingham Canal Navigations since 1794, had suggested amalgamating with the Dudley Canal in 1813, but nothing further took place. A second approach was made in 1845, and in the face of competition from the proposed Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, as well as the plans of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, they agreed to the merger on 8 October. The Birmingham and Dudley Canal Consolidation Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. cclxix) was obtained to authorise the amalgamation, and the Dudley Tunnel became part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations system from 27 July 1846.
Despite its diminutive size, some 41,000 boats passed through the tunnel in 1853. Birmingham Canal Navigations began looking at ways in which its capacity could be improved, but all of them were rejected. Instead they elected to build a new tunnel, running roughly parallel to the Dudley Tunnel and beginning on the Dudley Canal Line No 2 some to the east. Work began on 31 December 1855, when the first sod was cut, and Netherton Tunnel opened on 20 August 1858. It was wide and above water level, with towpaths on both sides. From the beginning, it was lit by gas lights, later replaced by electric lighting.