Manchester & Salford Junction Canal Tunnel

Manchester & Salford Junction Canal Tunnel

This brick-vaulted canal tunnel dates to 1839 and was engineered by John Gilbert Jr for the Manchester & Salford Junction Canal. During the Second World War, it was converted into a deep tunnel air-raid shelter. The tunnel runs approximately east to west between Watson Street and Lower Byrom Street, then turns south-east to north-west at Atherton Street towards the Irwell Navigation. The structure is 18 feet wide and 18 feet high, with a 3 feet 6 inches wide towpath set alongside the northern wall. Lower sections of the tunnel are constructed of red sandstone with deep sandstone copings, while the upper sections are brick-vaulted. The surviving central section extends approximately 0.27 miles and is accessible from two points: the former Deansgate/Great Northern Goods Station & Warehouse and Granada Studios. The section between Lower Byrom Street and Deansgate is flooded and not accessible on foot.

The canal tunnel is not visible above ground level. All air-raid shelter entrances have been blocked up, and the tunnel portal near Water Street has been altered and bricked up.

Originally the canal was 8 to 10 feet deep. Poured concrete floors were inserted during conversion to an air-raid shelter, raising the floor level. The tunnel is divided into sixteen separate bays by reinforced-brick blast walls, designed to prevent blast travel along the length of the tunnel. Reinforced-brick arched stairwells and reinforced-concrete stairs were inserted to provide access to the shelter. Much of the original white paint applied to the tunnel brickwork survives, presumably to maximise light. Brick skin walls inserted to prevent damp largely remain, though gas-pipe handrails have been removed, although some of their supports survive along with some ceiling lights.

Bays 1 to 5 lie beneath Deansgate and the former Deansgate/Great Northern Goods Station & Warehouse. They retain their original bay-to-bay air-raid shelter access via passageways through each blast wall, with brick bulkhead walls at either side with reinforced-concrete roofs. The bulkhead walls are annotated with arrows indicating direction of travel and bay numbers. This section is accessed via an 80-foot-high stairwell contained within the former Deansgate Goods Station & Warehouse, which was formerly a circa 1900 lift shaft or hoist well used to transport goods to the warehouse above. This leads to a short brick-vaulted passageway providing access onto the towpath of Bay 2. An identical passageway and lift shaft from Bay 3 to the west have been infilled.

Bays 2 and 3 are wider than the rest of the tunnel, resulting from an extension made circa 1900 to form a wharf serving the warehouse above. The former wharf is 31 feet wide and 23 feet 6 inches high with an 8 feet 6 inches wide towpath retaining an original cast-iron mooring bollard in Bay 2. Steps have been inserted from the towpath down onto the raised canal floor. Bay 2 contains a reinforced-brick structure in the south-west corner believed to have functioned as a toilet block during the shelter's use. Painted instructions for shelter users, now heavily faded, survive on the north wall. Further toilet blocks survive in Bays 1 and 4; the toilet in Bay 4 contains an original Elsan chemical toilet. A metal gas-proof screen survives to the western bulkhead wall and passageway in Bay 2. Bay 1 retains the upper section of the canal tunnel's original west portal, including stone voussoirs.

Bay 5 has a split-level floor with a large reinforced-brick air-raid shelter structure (original reinforced-concrete roof now removed) set alongside the south wall and arranged across both floor levels. The eastern end, set upon the higher ground level, is formed by a warden's post with look-out window openings to the east and north sides and a doorway (door removed) to the north. A short flight of steps provides access down to the original canal floor (now submerged under several feet of water) and to two first-aid posts, designated for men and women, separated internally by a brick dividing wall incorporating an access doorway. Entrance doorways and air vents exist to the north and west sides. Two staircases forming this bay and the shelter's Deansgate entrance have been inserted through the north wall of the tunnel. A warden's look-out with a corrugated metal roof also exists in Bay 1, along with a stair that served the Watson Street entrance.

Bays 6 to 12 lie beneath the area between approximately Deansgate and Lower Byrom Street and are flooded by several feet of water. Photographs taken in 2010 show they retain the same level of survival as the rest of the tunnel, including a raised towpath, annotated bulkhead access walls, Byrom Street air-raid shelter entrance stairs, and surviving air-raid shelter structures including toilet blocks and a further warden's look-out. Bay 9 contains a heavily degraded painted notice for shelter users adjacent to one of the bulkhead walls.

Bays 13 to 16 lie beneath the area between approximately Atherton Street and Lower Byrom Street and are accessed via a later inserted entrance contained within the Granada Studios building. Although the tunnel has been drained, groundwater seepage means the canal is partly filled with water. Bay 16, at the north-western end of the tunnel, has been truncated and sealed off by a mid to late 20th-century concrete wall. The original air-raid shelter access from bay to bay via passageways through blast walls with brick bulkhead walls at either side has been blocked up, though the bulkhead walls survive and are annotated with painted lettering and arrows indicating direction of travel and bay numbers. Access between bays is now via later doorways inserted through the blast walls at towpath level. Two air-raid shelter staircases forming the Lower Byrom Street entrance exist in Bay 13 and have been inserted through the northern wall of the tunnel. Set between the stairs is a warden's look-out consisting of a small square reinforced-brick structure built on the canal floor against the towpath, with window openings to the east and west sides and a doorway (door removed) to the south side. The look-out's original reinforced-concrete roof has been removed.

A much-altered additional chamber at the easternmost end of the tunnel section beneath and beyond Watson Street did not form part of the Second World War air-raid shelter. It incorporates an infilled formerly open-air reservoir and two truncated brick pump-engine housings with machinery now removed. It was also originally the site of the canal's open-air upper locks. This chamber is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing.