Introduction
The Leazes Main or Spital Tongues Colliery was opened in 1835 when the company of Porter & Latimer obtained a lease for a period of 31 years to extract coal from under the Newcastle Town Moor, Nuns Moor and Castle Leazes.
Initially, the extracted coal would have been taken to the staiths on the river by transporting it on carts through Newcastle. This was obviously unsatisfactory as not only was it expensive but it was also unpopular with the Town Council and the inhabitants. The colliery owners therefore engaged the services of William E Gilhespie, a local engineer and colliery viewer with offices in Collingwood Street, Newcastle, to plan and build a waggonway to transport the coal.
A map of Newcastle shows that the shortest route for a waggonway would have been around the west side of Newcastle, possibly to staiths on the river in the Elswick or Benwell area. However, this route would have presented a problem!
Newcastle's Georgian bridge, which was opened in 1781, was a low, stone-arched structure that prevented large sea-going colliers from getting upstream as far as Elswick. It would have been necessary to employ keelmen to transport the coal downstream to be loaded on to the ships that carried the coal, mainly to London. Therefore, Gilhespie's first plan was to construct a surface waggonway across the Town Moor and to the east of Newcastle either linking with the river or the Newcastle to North Shields Railway which was completed in 1839.
Unfortunately, the Freemen who controlled the Town Moor, as they still do, refused permission for a surface waggonway and even if they had allowed it the wayleaves payable to land owners along the route made it a very expensive option. Consequently, Gilhespie drew up a plan for a tunnel that would follow a similar route ending at a set of staiths just to the west of the mouth of the Ouseburn. The Proceedings of the Town Council in June 1838 record that permission had been granted for the construction of a tunnel.
Construction of the tunnel commenced on the 27 June 1839 with John Cherry, a lead miner from Yorkshire and employed as a pitman at the Spital Tongues Colliery, in charge of the excavating. The stone and brickwork was the responsibilty of David Nixon, a local builder with a business based in Prudhoe Street, Newcastle. W.E.Gilhespie was the engineer in overall charge of the project.
There are no contemporary accounts of how the tunnel was constructed but it is thought that it was probably done in sections, that is, shafts would be dug down to the required depth then the tunnel would be excavated out in either direction with the sections then being linked. There is evidence of at least one of these "access points" in the accessible part of the tunnel.
The dimension and structure of the tunnel is fairly consistent over its full length of a little over two miles. Although the height has been reduced due to a new floor being laid, it was approximately 7ft 5in high and 6ft 3in wide with a double-brick arched roof, a stone lower wall and and inverted arched floor. At its deepest point it is 85ft below the surface.
The tunnel was finally completed on the 8 January 1842 when a celebratory party for two hundred workmen being "regaled with a substantial supper and strong ale" was held at the Unicorn Inn in the Bigg Market, Newcastle with the Albion Band who "enlivened the joyous occasion with their music".
The Victoria Tunnel, named after the popular, young Queen Victoria, was officially opened by the Mayor of Newcastle on the 7 April 1842. To declare it open a train of eight waggons took half an hour to travel from the colliery to a reception at the Quayside. Four of the waggons contained coal whilst the others were occupied by various local dignitaries and a band of musicians! The waggons were greeted by the firing of cannons and refreshments for the participants were provided in a marquee.
© Phil Thirkell April 2006
Page updated: April 2006
