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Cove Harbour Access Tunnel [west]

Cove, Berwickshire.

Access tunnel to Cove Harbour.

Cove Harbour, now little used, was completed in 1831. It has two masonry piers forming an entrance about 50 ft wide with the North Sea and enclosing an area of three acres. Earlier piers, vestiges of which still exist, were destroyed in storms, but a notable tunnel made through a spur of rock in ca.1752 remains, although somewhat distorted in parts by recent safeguarding measures. It was formed as part of a harbour improvement by Sir John Hall of Dunglass to give safe access to the beach. As the road from Cove nears the harbour, a rock cutting 32 ft long on the right leads to the tunnel entrance. The tunnel is 183 ft in length and slopes down 20 ft. Its first 20 ft from the road is built in rubble masonry with an arched roof and is 814 ft wide and 1012 ft high. Beyond this to the harbour, the tunnel is cut through the natural sandstone. It was originally 10 ft square at the beach end (at cliff base at left-hand edge of the view), near which it connects via an iron door with an elaborate system of disused storage cellars hewn out of the rock. The contractor was Stephen Redpath and the principal mason John Brown. Gunpowder was used to make the tunnel. Labourers were paid from 5d to 6d per day and excavation cost from 7s 6d to 10s per cubic fathom. This pre-canal age tunnel, one of the earliest in Britain in a context other than mining, is indicative of the spirit of commercial enterprise stirring in Scotland at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. [Paxton and Shipway, 2007]

The 'mine' or tunnel is the best-known feature of the harbour site. The word refers to the rock-cut tunnel, and was used in this sense as, in Britain in 1752, tunnels were rare in other contexts than mining. A tunnel was essential to the development at Cove, as the road from the hamlet ends on a rock platform with an edge falling sheer into the basin, and without a tunnel, access to the beach could only be obtained at high water by the very steep slope overlooking its landward side. Some traces of a narrow zig-zag track, for this purpose, can be seen near the top of the slope, but the rest has been carried away by landslips in the unstable clay drift.

The tunnel opens off the road from Cove about 100yds [91.5m] above the lower end or the road, approached by a cutting in the hillside 32ft [9.8m] long. The outermost section of the tunnel (20ft [6.1m] long, 8ft 3ins [2.5m] wide and 10ft 6ins [3.2m] high) is built in masonry with a rounded vault supporting the overburden of drift covering the seaward slope. The tunnel runs NW-by-N to SE-by-S with a fall of about 20ft [6.1m]; it is not quite regularly aligned although daylight can just be seen from end to end. Subject to minor errors arising from the irregularity of the work, a total length of 183ft [55.8m], inclusive of the masonry vault, may be taken as reasonably accurate. The same cause prejudices accuracy in the measurement of the height and breadth, but heights were noted varying from 7ft 10ins [2.4m] to 9ft 7ins [2.9m], and breadths of from 9ft 4ins [2.8m] to 10ft 9ins [3.3m] at ground level; the section of the tunnel, however, nowhere approaches a rectangle as the sides curve inwards as they rise, leaving a flattish strip along the centre some 3ft [0.9m] to 4ft [1.2m] in width. Some abortive cutting just inside the masonry vault shows that this end of the tunnel was originally started on a line running slightly E of, and also rather higher than, the existing work. Pick-marks are plentiful everywhere, and many have no doubt disappeared through weathering as this rock is extremely friable. Entries for 'powder' in the account-book point to blasting somewhere in the harbour area, but no traces of jumper-holes were found.

The passage giving access to No. 1 'cellar' (NT77SE 59.06) opens 28ft [8.5m] short of the tunnel exit; beside it, at ground level, there is a triangular recess showing both pick-marks and natural fractures. The exit, measuring about 10ft [3m] in both height and width, opens on to the face of a cliff some 30ft [9.1m] above high-water mark. Its irregular shape suggests that the end of the tunnel has been formed (as suggested in the New Statistical Account) in the mouth of a natural cave; and this is very possible as its elevation corresponds with that of a raised beach, where sea-caves would have tended to form in a past geological phase. A road is marked on the older editions of the OS maps as leading down from the exit to a point near the centre of the beach, while an access to it from the 'cellars' (similarly marked) has been obliterated altogether.

The figures relating to the 'mine' in the Redpath memorandum are chiefly notable for their inaccuracy. Even if 81 sq ft [7.5 sq m] can be accepted as a reasonable estimate of size of the tunnel section - and this is highly questionable - neither the 'length' of 222.5ft [67.8m] nor the 'whole length' of 240.9ft [73.4m] can be reconciled with the actual dimensions. That is to say, the aggregate length of the tunnelk and vault amounts only to 183ft [55.8m], while the addition of the 32ft [9.8m] length of the open entrance-passage would bring the total to no more than 215ft [65.5m]. Again, if the stated dimensions are taken at their face value, their product comes to 83.44, not 37.08 cubic fathoms. On the other hand, the payment of £18 10s 9 1/2d [£18.54] would be right for 37.08 cu fms at the 10s rate, and the cubic-fathom figure, at least, is therefore likely to be correct. If the stated dimensions are examined in the light of this hint, it will be seen that 222 ½, or more correctly 222.48, is the product of 37.08 x 6, and this leads on to the suspicion that this entry has been faked - ie. that the writer first arrived at his cubic-fathom total by some method not divulged, that he then desired to present tis total as if calculated from measurements in feet, and that in dressing up his statement he mistakenly multiplied his total by 6, instead of 6 x 6 x 6. [A Graham 1966]

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: This tunnel extends from NT c. 78356 71766 to NT c. 78401 71718. [Canmore]