What can I see at the Tar Tunnel?

Geological curiosities and technological innovations…both inside and outside the Tar Tunnel you’ll see how the early industrialists of the Gorge overcame the natural obstacles and exploited the commercial potentials of its geology.

Tar Pools

Deep within the peaceful hillside of the Ironbridge Gorge a natural curiosity lies hidden. Oozing through the walls or welling up in puddles, sticky black natural bitumen naturally occurs in the rocks through which the Tar Tunnel is driven. Bitumen has many important commercial uses, which William Reynolds, who had the Tunnel dug, was not slow to realise. Cavities were gouged into the walls of the tunnel in which to collect the tar, which once used to flow in vast quantities. The flow of tar has greatly diminished since then, but two of the wells can still be seen inside the Tunnel. You’ll have to crouch down to peer inside these miniature caverns and see the thick tranquil pools of liquid tar.

The Hay Incline Plane

Just outside the entrance to the Tar Tunnel a line of railway tracks lead up the hillside from the end of the canal. But what sort of railway would run down such a steep slope into a canal? Despite appearances this isn’t a railway but an Incline Plane, a nifty invention designed in the early 1790s to move tub boats between the Shropshire canal at the top of the hill and the Coalport canal at the bottom. It would have needed 27 locks to get a boat up the hill, and taken a tiresome three hours to pass through them. Instead the boats were carried on wheeled cradles up and down the rails of the Incline Plane. The weight of a boat going down was enough to pull up a boat from the bottom, and two boats could pass along the Incline in a speedy four minutes.