Early history of the undertaking—1871.In November, 1871, Mr. Charles Richardson deposited plans in Parliament for the Severn Tunnel. He soon afterwards obtained the assistance of Sir John Hawkshaw, who agreed to act as consulting engineer, and the scheme being taken up by the Great Western Railway Company, was carried through Parliament, and an Act for the construction of the tunnel obtained in 1872.
The Great Western Railway Company lost no time in commencing the works, which they did early in 1873.
In order to test the strata, they sunk and lined with brickwork, on the Monmouthshire or west side of the Severn, a shaft 15 feet in diameter to a depth of about 200 feet; and from this they commenced to drive a heading eastwards under the river. The heading had a rise from the bottom of the shaft of 1 in 500, and was driven at the level necessary to drain the lowest point of the intended tunnel under the deep-water channel of the river.
When the works were commenced, the parish of Portskewett, in which they were situated, was a purely agricultural parish, with a population of men, women, and children, of 260. No buildings whatever existed near the site of the shaft, the nearest being a farmhouse, known as Sudbrook or Southbrook Farm, with two cottages, and at a slightly greater distance along the river-bank an inn, known as the ‘Black Rock Hotel,’ with three or four cottages occupied by the inspector of the steam-