Chipping Sodbury Tunnel West Portal (SWB10348)

MATERIALS: all squared and coursed quarry-faced sandstone except the engineering brick arch ring.

DESCRIPTION: horseshoe tunnel mouth with moulded engineering brick arch, including outer roll, and giant key stone, flanked by emphatic raked piers treated as broad pilasters, which project above the parapet. Straight wing walls outside the piers. Across the whole elevation, triple-stepped cornice and projecting coping, which form part of a central parapet projection which rests on the keystone.

The portal is set into a hillside just below the village of Old Sodbury, which forms the backdrop when the tunnel is viewed from the overbridge a few hundred metres down the line to the west. One of the tunnel's castellated vents can also be seen from here on the crest of the hill which rises up behind the village.