Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/232

Rh Brick Company, near the Gloucestershire end of the tunnel, 100,000 bricks per month. From two makers in Staffordshire we were obtaining 500,000 bricks per month, and we were making in our own field about 600,000 per month. The total of 1,200,000 bricks was sufficient to complete 3,600 cubic yards of brickwork per month.

As I was very anxious that the work should be proceeded with, and secured as rapidly as possible, I sent an agent down to Staffordshire to secure a larger supply, and from five different makers we obtained contracts to supply a further quantity of 1,000,000 bricks per month.

The amount of the work done in the year 1883 is shown upon the accompanying section.

At the end of 1883, one mile of continuous full-sized tunnel was completed on the Gloucestershire side of the river, and the work was rapidly progressing at ten other points on the same side from ten ‘break-up’ lengths. The bottom heading had been completed throughout the whole length of the tunnel between Sudbrook and the Gloucestershire side.

The arch had been turned under the ‘Shoots’ for a length of half a mile; the full-sized tunnel had been completed, from the Sudbrook Shaft, for a length of something more than a quarter of a mile. At 5 miles 4 chains shaft a length of a quarter of a mile of tunnel and arching had been completed. At the Marsh, rather more than half a mile of full-sized tunnel,