A cycle ride through the Two Tunnels on the disused Somerset and Dorset railway line. The ride starts in Bath from the northerly entrance to the Devonshire tunnel, then heads south through Lyncombe Vale before entering the longer Combe Down tunnel. Opened in 1874, the Combe Down tunnel is 1,829-yard (1,672 m) long. It was once the UK’s longest without intermediate ventilation. The tunnel now forms part of the £1.8 million Two Tunnels Greenway walking and cycling path opened on 6 April 2013 and is the longest cycling tunnel in Britain.
I’m old enough (!) to remember seeing steam trains thundering through Lyncombe Vale in the early 60s. The vale is a narrow, deep, quiet and peaceful place, but the calm would suddenly be shattered by a steam train erupting from Devonshire tunnel, a wonderful thing to experience as a boy. I first traversed the Combe Down tunnel in 1967 soon after the railway closed. It was a scary experience, the only light we had was from a feeble torch and a burning flame fed from an old metal oil can. The sight, smell and scale of the smoky old tunnel back then is a vivid memory. It’s lovely to be able to traverse the tunnel again over half a century later.