Go to the Main Mendip Cave Registry Search Page

Clifton Rocks Railway

Hotwells, Avon Gorge.

This engineering masterpiece, which opened on the 11th March 1893, operated right through until 1st October 1934 when it finally closed. The railway consisted of an Upper Station, situated adjacent to Sion Hill, and a Lower Station, close to the famous Hot Well alongside Hotwells Road. In between, a broad semi-elliptical brick-lined tunnel (the widest of its kind in the world at the time of its construction), inclined at a gradient of 1:2.2, operated four water-balanced passenger cars, each able to carry 18 passengers. During WWII the tunnel was put to use both as an air raid shelter and as a bomb proof emergency broadcasting centre for the BBC. Finally abandoned in March 1960, the tunnel today remains derelict, but is open to visiting parties keen to explore the broad, steeply-dipping tunnel and dilapidated broadcast rooms. Another 20m long brick-lined tunnel passes beneath Sion Hill to the garden of Spring House and may have been constructed to enable pedestrians to visit the gorge's attractions without having to cross the busy road.

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: SU1 p.58