Trent And Mersey Canal Harecastle Tunnel Portals And Attached Retaining Walls

The Harecastle Tunnel Portals and attached retaining walls are a pair of canal tunnel portals located on the Trent and Mersey Canal in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent. They were constructed between 1766 and 1767 by James Brindley, with further work completed between 1824 and 1827 by Thomas Telford. The structure features brown brick, rock-faced ashlar, and coursed rubble with ashlar dressings.

Brindley's brick tunnel portal is set back to the left and has a segmental arched entrance with an ashlar coped facing wall. To the right is Telford's rock-faced ashlar tunnel portal, which includes a segmental rusticated ashlar entrance arch flanked by pilaster buttresses. This entrance is currently obscured by a 20th-century coursed rubble fanhouse, which has a square tunnel entrance and two large metal-framed windows above it.

Telford's original facing wall is topped with an ashlar pulvinated frieze and a plain coped parapet. To the right, this wall curves and slopes down to the ground, while to the left, it adjoins Brindley's tunnel portal. The wall is interrupted in the center by a gap, which is flanked by pilaster buttresses and leads to pairs of long flights of steps that rise between the walls.