The building of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's (1806-1859) broad-guage Great Western Railway from Corsham to Box involved the cutting of the record-breaking Box Tunnel - at two miles long, the longest railway tunnel in Europe. Work on the tunnel commenced in 1836 but the human cost of its 5-year construction was so awful - no less than a hundred men dead - that it was opened without ceremony on June 30th, 1841.
A ton of gunpowder a week was used at the height of the tunnel's construction and this was stored at No. 42 High Street, after the completion of the tunnel, powder was stored there for quarrying. The building caught fire in
1841 and the explosions could be heard ten miles away.
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