Hidden Manchester Map> Mottram Tunnel 📍
Part of the Longdendale Aqueduct, Mottram Tunnel is 2.8km long. It was built between 1848 and 1850 and can carry 230 million litres of water a day. Along its route you can see a number of ventilation shafts, including one right in the middle of a housing estate (see Google Maps). The tunnel is shown on a splendid map of the aqueduct shown in Martin Dodge’s Spaces of Infrastructure: The History and Description of the Manchester Waterworks article on his blog.
The Mottram Tunnel (Mottram in Longdendale) is a tunnel carrying drinking water by gravity from Arnfield Reservoir, Tintwistle, Derbyshire in the valley of the River Etherow, to Godley, Greater Manchester in the valley of the River Tame. It was essential to the construction of the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs constructed by John Frederick Bateman. The tunnel was built between August 1848 and October 1850, and the Godley service reservoir was built to receive and filter the water. That was finished in 1851.