West Portal of Box Tunnel is a Grade II* listed building in the Wiltshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 24 July 1985. A Victorian Tunnel entrance.
West Portal of Box Tunnel
- WRENN ID
- pitched-loft-thunder
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Wiltshire
- Constituency
- Melksham and Devizes MP: Brian Mathew (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 24 July 1985
- Type
- Tunnel entrance
- Period
- Victorian
- Address
- West Portal of Box Tunnel, London Road
- OS grid reference
- ST 829 689
- Coordinates
- 51.4189, -2.24691
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The west portal of Box Tunnel is a tunnel entrance built around 1840 by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Railway. It features a classical entrance made of ashlar stone, flanked by curving ashlar abutments. The central section projects and includes rusticated quoins, a heavy bracket cornice, and a top balustrade with a blank centre panel. The tunnel archway is moulded, with a console keystone and panelled spandrels. There are set back piers on each side, each with a simplified cornice and a plain parapet. This entrance leads to a 2,964 metre tunnel, which was constructed between 1836 and 1841 with a workforce that varied from 1,200 to 4,000 men, making it the longest tunnel on the Great Western Railway.
Local climate
West Portal of Box Tunnel receives an average of 840 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 57% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 60% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 56% of listed buildings. Of these, 14 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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