Red, white and blue balls

 If you take the A38 from Willand to Wellington you will pass signs for Red Ball and for White Ball. Although these are now place names they really refer to two hills.  One is made of white sandstone and the other of red, and apparently "Ball" means a small hill. And there's a Blue Ball Inn in Sampford Moor just off the right hand side of my map - doubtless they wanted to get in on the band-waggon.

So I cycled to the start of a footpath, then hiked, hoping to take photos of the the Thing of Interest, namely the White Ball railway tunnel. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the chief engineer responsible, indeed he was for the whole route down from Bristol including the famous bridge over the river Tamar which has fascinated me since childhood. Incidentally the bridge carries only a single track with a severe speed restriction of 15 mph.

Royal Albert bridge over Tamar (stock photo)

I had hoped the footpath, that must at some point cross directly over the tunnel, might reveal a ventilation shaft or at least get me close to the tunnel mouth but alas neither were forthcoming. But the history is worth checking out if you love railways as I do. Can you imagine one thousand men with shovels and wheelbarrows who created the cuttings and tunnel? And their effort is still with us, conveying the main line from Paddington to Penzance.

Here is a stock photo taken when they removed all vegetation in 2009, followed with my own photos. Quite a lot of growth since then!

White ball tunnel mouth 2009 (stock photo)

Beginning of footpath

Here it joined a corn field, note...

...the Wellington monument on the horizon

Standing directly over the tunnel looking North

The mouth is down there somewhere

I tried in vain to negotiate the undergrowth

but eventually found this vantage point

Again directly over the tunnel

The last photo was taken on the way back, nearer the top of White Ball hill. If you look carefully near the centre of the photo (you'll need to click to enlarge it) you will see the yellow front of a down-line train about to enter the tunnel.