page_title: Bramhope Tunnel
section_title: What is visible today
hierarchical_section_title: Bramhope Tunnel / What is visible today
caption_attribution_description: English: Bramhope north portal detail, Bramhope, West Yorkshire, England. Bramhope tunnel's fantastic north portal was built to appease the rich landowner and gain his approval for the construction of this 2mile 243yd long tunnel linking Leeds with Harrogate. The North Eastern railway started construction in 1845 and was completed in 1849 with 23 men killed. A replica of the tunnel portal stands in Otley churchyard to remember the men who lost their lives.
context_page_description: Bramhope Tunnel is on the Harrogate Line between Horsforth station and the Arthington Viaduct in West Yorkshire, England. Services through the railway tunnel are operated mainly by Northern. The tunnel was constructed during 1845–1849 by the Leeds and Thirsk Railway. It is notable for its 2.138-mile length and its Grade II listed, crenellated north portal. The deaths of 24 men who were killed during its construction are commemorated in Otley churchyard by a monument that is a replica of the tunnel's north portal.
  Thomas Grainger was the engineer for the line and James Bray the contractor. Two sighting towers were erected and 20 shafts sunk along the tunnel's line. Men excavated rock from the shaft faces until the shafts were connected and the tunnel was completed in 1848. Thousands of navvies lived locally in temporary bothies with their families, and worked in dangerous and wet conditions to facilitate the grand opening in 1849.
context_section_description: Four of the twenty construction shafts were retained as ventilation shafts.  One of the two sighting towers, a tall, cylindrical sandstone structure, two metres in diameter with four vertical slits near the top and flat coping stones is still standing in the field opposite Bramhope cemetery. The other one, now demolished, was behind Dyneley Hall. About 250,000 cubic yards (190,000 m³) of sandstone and shale spoil was tipped close to the ventilation shafts along the line of the tunnel. One of the tips is in an area around the scout hut north of Otley Road through to the Knoll, another is south of Breary Lane, one is in a field opposite the cemetery and another near None-go-Byes Farm.
  The sandstone sighting tower, the north and south portals and the retaining walls to the south portal are all Grade II listed structures. The portals are on Network Rail land with no public access. The southern portal at the Horsforth end is a plain sandstone horseshoe-shaped arch with rusticated voussoirs below a cornice and a parapet. It is approached by a slightly curved 300-metre cutting faced with sandstone retaining walls. They have a concave batter, slightly-projecting piers at regular intervals and are topped with square coping stones.
  The Gothic north portal is castellated, and after it was finished, was lived in for a while by railway workers. It is built of rock–faced sandstone and has three side towers with turrets.  The keystone on its horseshoe–shaped archway features a portrait of a bearded man. Its crenellated parapet has a carved cartouche in the centre featuring a wheatsheaf, fleece and fish.>
caption: North portal in 2007
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