Location West Midlands, England Status Closed Design engineer William Underhill Length 3,470 m Waterway Dudley Canal | OS grid reference SO998830 Closed 1917 Tunnel clearance 6 feet (1.8 m) Constructed 1798 | |
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The Lapal Tunnel (old spelling Lappal Tunnel) is a disused 3,470-metre (11,385 ft) canal tunnel on the five mile dry section of the Dudley No. 2 Canal in the West Midlands, England. It takes its name from the settlement of Lapal.
The narrow brick-lined tunnel, built in 1798 by William Underhill, had no towpath. It had a very small bore - at 7 feet 9 inches, barely wider than the boats which used it, with a headroom of only 6 feet. Boats originally took about three hours to complete the passage by legging or poling, so in 1841 a steam engine was built at the Halesowen end which drove a scoop wheel to load the tunnel with water. Stop gates could be opened at either end to assist boats along the tunnel in either direction.
The tunnel suffered many collapses, and after a collapse in 1917 due to mining subsidence it was abandoned. It runs under Lapal, the M5 motorway near junction 3 and Woodgate Valley Country Park. The canal on the south side of the tunnel is also disused and some sections have been filled in as the tunnel was considered uneconomic to repair. To the north of the tunnel, the canal is in good repair and is used by boats accessing Hawne basin.
Restoration
The Lapal Canal Trust is concerned with restoring the lost canal to make it navigable up to the tunnel from both the Halesowen and Selly Oak ends, and originally had a longer term aim of restoring the tunnel. In May 2007 the trust received recommendations from professional consultants, Atkins, that the tunnel should not be restored but replaced by a new up-and-over alignment instead.
In February 2012 plans for the regeneration of the Selly Oak area were submitted to Birmingham City Council which included a navigable section of canal from a new junction with the Worcester and Birmingham Canal to the recently reconstructed Harborne Lane bridge.
