Clifton Hall Tunnel

Clifton Hall Tunnel, also called the Black Harry Tunnel, was a railway tunnel passing beneath much of Swinton and Pendlebury, in Greater Manchester, England which partly collapsed on 28 April 1953 killing five occupants of houses in Temple Drive, Swinton which had been built above the tunnel many years earlier.

The tunnel was on the Patricroft and Clifton branch of the London and North Western Railway line linking Patricroft with Molyneux Junction.^[1] The line provided a strategically important link to Radcliffe via the Clifton Viaduct (known locally as "the 13 arches"), which has since been granted Listed status and therefore still stands across the Irwell Valley next to the M60 motorway.

The tunnel collapsed at a point directly beneath an old brick-lined construction shaft, the contents of which fell into the space below. The surrounding soil, which was a loose mixture of sand and clay, poured into the hole and formed a large cavity underneath the foundations of two houses on Temple Drive. The houses, (numbers 22 and 24) suddenly collapsed into the ground killing five occupants and the end wall of another (number 26) fell outwards though the occupants of this house were rescued.

References

1. ^ This line was opened in 1850 primarily to serve the collieries in the Clifton Hall district.

• Precise description of events surrounding the collapse
• Official Railway Accident Report retrieved 6 January 2007

Coordinates: 53°30′30″N 2°19′29″W / 53.508291°N 2.324754°W / 53.508291; -2.324754