Shugborough Tunnel

Shugborough Tunnel is long, a brick-lined semi-circular arch and carries a double line of railway under a flank of the Satnall Hills through the grounds of Shugborough Hall. Though driven through conglomerate rock, a hard sandstone, it is built on a curve and contains no ventilation shafts. The shafts were filled in on completion of the excavations as any structure or spoil hill would have disturbed the delicate classically landscaped hillside overhead. The two portals of the tunnel, which are highly ornamental, each take a different style, though both are of stone and designed by John Livock. The 19th century railway produced architecture distinct from the styles of the monuments in Shugborough Park, which reflected 18th century taste, but which complemented the setting. The eastern portal, which lies within the park, has influences from Classical and Egyptian architecture, and has a decorated overhang below its cornice, which has a shield carved with the arms of the Earl of Lichfield in its centre, and a stone parapet above. The archway stands on a base of vermiculated courses and is surrounded by alternating chamfered and vermiculated bands, as well as flanking walls of rubble masonry, now hidden by vegetation. The western portal has a much different castellated Romanesque architectural style; a deeply moulded arch supported on jamb-shafts and cushion capitals, with a face dressed in finely coursed stone. A buttressing tower flanks each side, each with an arrow slit and a round window. The left wing wall resembles a castle wall, ending in a turret; the wall on the right is stepped up the hillside in stages above the level of the portal face. The western portal was featured in The Illustrated London News at its opening in 1846, accompanied by a woodcut (left). A description of the portal said "a very striking architectural composition...a noble archway deeply moulded, flanked by two square towers, the whole surmounted by a battlemented parapet resting on arched corbel tables. The lofty trees clothed with the richest foliage rising from the elevated ground through which the tunnel is pierced, give a depth of tone, and artistic effect to the whole scene, at once peculiarly imposing and beautiful, and form a remarkably fine feature in the scenery of the railway." Original watercolour draft plans of the tunnel's portals survive in the Staffordshire Record Office. So impressive were the portals that they became known as the "Gates of Jerusalem". ==History==

The Trent Valley Railway (TVR) was created in 1844 as an independent company (though it consolidated with others in 1846 to form the London and North Western Railway while still under construction) to provide a mail route direct from London to Ireland, bypassing Birmingham and avoiding the need to transfer mail and passengers there. This required it to pass through the estate of Shugborough Hall in Colwich, Staffordshire, possibly making its owner, the Earl of Lichfield, one of the earliest landowners approached by a railway seeking to cross his estate, which contains a spur of low hills. The Anson family, to which he belonged, was sufficiently powerful to have previously had the ancient road from Lichfield to Stafford diverted so as not to divide the landscaped grounds of the 16th century manor house on Shugborough estate. However, Lord Lichfield was not living on the estate at the time the TVR was looking to expand through the estate. His brother, Colonel George Anson, had taken residence in the house and was more sympathetic to the expanding railway than many landowners would have been, though the Earl, whose representatives negotiated with the TVR, resisted the railway from a distance, and insisted that the railway should be hidden in a tunnel or diverted away from Shugborough. The tunnel and whole Trent Valley Line were electrified in the 1960s with 25kV AC overhead wires. The line was also quadrupled except for through the tunnel which is double-track. ==References==