420 HARECASTLE TUNNEL. PART VIII. 



in the other he was honoured and feted as a public 

 benefactor, the King conferring upon him the Swedish 

 order of knighthood, and presenting him with his 'por- 

 trait set in diamonds. 



Among the various canals throughout England which 

 Mr. Telford was employed to construct or improve, 

 down to the commencement of the railway era, were the 

 Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, in 1818 ; the Grand 

 Trunk Canal, in 1822 ; the Harecastle Tunnel, which he 

 constructed anew, in 1824-7 ; the Birmingham Canal, in 

 1824 ; and the Macclesfield, and Birmingham and Liver- 

 pool Junction Canals, in 1825. The Gloucester and 

 Berkeley Canal Company had been unable to finish their 

 works, begun some thirty years before ; but with the 

 assistance of a loan of 160,000/. from the Exchequer 

 Bill Loan Commissioners, they were enabled to proceed 

 with the completion of their undertaking. A capacious 

 canal was cut from Gloucester to Sharpness Point, about 

 eight miles down the Severn, which had the effect of 

 greatly improving the convenience of the port of 

 Gloucester ; and by means of this navigation, ships 

 of large burden can now avoid the circuitous and diffi- 

 cult passage of the higher part of the river., very much 

 to the advantage of the trade of the place. 



The formation of a new tunnel through Harecastle. 

 Hill, for the better accommodation of the boats passing 

 along the Grand Trunk Canal, was a formidable work. 

 The original tunnel, it will be remembered, was laid 

 out by Brindley, about fifty years before, and occupied 

 eleven years in construction. But the engineering 

 appliances of those early days were very limited ; the 

 pumping powers of the steam-engine had not been 

 fairly developed, and workmen were as yet only half- 

 educated in the expert use of tools. The tunnel, no 

 doubt, answered the purpose for which it was originally 

 intended, but it was very soon found too limited for 

 the traffic passing along the navigation. It was little 



