Chirk Tunnel is a canal tunnel near Chirk

Chirk

Chirk is a small town and local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It has a population of over 4,000....

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

.

It lies on the Llangollen Canal

Llangollen Canal

The Llangollen Canal is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshire....

, immediately northwards of the Chirk Aqueduct

Chirk Aqueduct

Chirk Aqueduct is a high and long navigable aqueduct that carries what is now the Llangollen Canal across the Ceiriog Valley near Chirk, on the England-Wales border....

. It is 421 metres (460.4 yd) long and has a complete towpath inside. The tunnel is designed for a single standard narrowboat

Narrowboat

A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of Great Britain.In the context of British Inland Waterways, "narrow boat" refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals...

, so passing is not possible. Fortunately the tunnel is straight enough to be able to see if a boat is already inside the tunnel.

This tunnel was the first tunnel in Britain to have a towpath in the tunnel (along with its shorter neighbour - Whitehouse Tunnel)