The 3083-yard Butterley tunnel is the great obstacle to the full restoration on the Cromford Canal. It was condemned as beyond economic repair as long ago as 1909.
In this great video, Trekking Exploration - subscribe to his YouTube account at once - begins at Codnor Reservoir, the first of three that supplied water to the summit level of the Cromford Canal. He then visits the Eastern portal of Butterley Tunnel before following the length of it above ground to the Western portal. He ends at Hartshay Wharf near Ripley.
If you want to see what conditions are like beneath the ground, have a look at the Friends of Cromford Canal site, which has photographs from a 1979 inspection.
And the Wikipedia entry for Butterley Tunnel tells us something remarkable:
About 880 yards (800m) from the tunnel's western portal there is an underground wharf about 60 yards (55m) long with the tunnel here widened to about 16 feet (4.9m).
One of the horizontal tunnels departing from the tunnel at this point used to run to the Butterley Company's Butterley Carr Pit which opened in 1812 and loaded its coal directly into narrow boats at the underground wharf.
There were also vertical shafts from the wharf which allowed goods in tram boxes to be lowered directly from and lifted up to the Butterley Company's works (on the hill above the tunnel) to and from the underground wharf.
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