Railway tunnel portals MVL3/40, east end of Standedge Tunnel

The east end of Standedge Tunnel features three railway tunnel portals. The central portal was constructed between 1845 and 1849 by contractor Thomas Nicholson and engineer Alfred Stanistreet Jee for the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway line. The south portal was built at the same time, in advance of a tunnel excavated between 1868 and 1871, while the north portal was completed between 1890 and 1894 for the London & North Western Railway.

The portals are made of brick arches, with coursed and squared quarry-faced gritstone walls and ashlar dressings. They are located in a deep cutting at Tunnel End, Marsden, and all three are set into a gritstone wall. The central and south portals share a matching design, featuring brick horseshoe arches flanked by battered quarry-faced stone buttresses. Above the arches and across the buttresses runs a moulded ashlar stringcourse and blocking course, which serves as a cornice to finish the structure. Both of these portals were originally designed for a single track railway, although the south portal's bore was excavated later.

The north portal, built for a double track, is taller and wider than the others. It has a Staffordshire blue brick horseshoe arch set within an ashlar roll moulding, flanked by two projecting quarry-faced buttresses or piers. Above the arch is a dentilled cornice and a scalloped parapet, which rises over an ashlar date stone inscribed with "1894."