What are the spooky tunnels on the river bank of the Goyt river?

Went for a walk around Marple at the weekend, setting off from the Midland Pub, following the footpath along the banks of the Goyt river towards that Garden House place.

There are a couple of tunnels dug into the hill side, one was a maybe 4ft diameter and seems to go on for quite a while, straight on a slight incline, it wasn’t gated and with a decent torch you could probably venture pretty far (only had a phone light so quickly lost my bottle).

Looks like some kind of canal infrastructure, anyone know what they are??

Stone entrance with arch at the top?

thats the fella

I should have said, that was the first tunnel, there was a second one further along but that was rubbish.

For diverting river water for long gone mills.

Yeh water tunnels for the old mill. If you google there’s pages about people going down them.
There’s also a rumour of a huge one from down near the garden centre lights right under half of Marple and coming out near middle wood way. Not sure I believe that!
On a hot day you can feel the cold air coming out as you go past

What’s amazing is that the mill the tunnel leads from is on the other side of the river. The Mill added a third waterwheel that used the water from the existing two, but to get enough drop to make it work the water came out below the level of the river. So they dug a tunnel to 600 yards downstream where the river was low enough, there was a bend in the river so it crossed under.

Marple Tunnels, Stockport

There is all sorts of stuff if you look around. Shame all the old mills have gone, but some amazing works. Loads of tell tale signs – all along the Peak Forest canal you can see signs of various mills.

There’s a few different types. Some as mentioned are for the water flows for the old mill wheels, some are man-szed for access. Those further down the river that you mentioned aren’t related to the mills, they are outlets for adits from the old mines up the hill

Pretty surprised there isn’t a gate on the round one, it dead easy to get in, I might take a decent torch next time and see how brave I am (not very).

I’ve tried to venture into one, but it is quite cold and damp in there. NBT used to take our nephew in a few, but the one under the bridge (across the road from where the mill manager lived is gated off now.)