DETAILS are emerging on the history of the mysterious tunnel which has recently been excavated in central Lydbrook – thanks to a Review reader.

Bob Marrows, who deals with archives at the Dean Forest Railway, contacted the Review and sent in a photograph that shows the tunnel as it looked around 1950.

He wrote: "From notes on the back of a 1950s photograph held in the Dean Forest Railway Museum's archives, the tunnel is identified as being on the route of a private narrow gauge tramway which ran between the upper and lower tinplate works at Lydbrook.

"The tunnel almost certainly dates from around 1874 when a standard guage railway siding from the Severn and Wye Railway was routed across the tramway at a higher level. The tramway appears to have been lifted by 1894.

"The southern end of the tunnel would have finally been obliterated in the 1950s when the site of the upper tinplate works was levelled to accommodate the now vanished Edward's filling station and transport depot."

The fascinating photograph that he discovered shows the mouth of the tunnel almost exactly as it was shown in the Review two weeks ago, but with a large motorbike, possibly a Triumph model, parked outside.

Some residents of the village had said that the tunnel had been used as a parking place for motorcycles around 50 years ago.

However, the discovery of the photograph has still failed to answer some questions: Such as: why did the tinplate works need a covered tramway, and, what was it used for? If any reader can answer either of those questions, please get in contact with the Review.