Standedge Tunnel & Visitor Centre - Canal & River Trust — Attraction in Kirklees

Visited on a Saturday in July 2022 early afternoon, below are my impressions (I also have a YouTube video about the experience on my channel "Adventures & Experiences"):

the parking near Marsden train station is large and free of charge, you can stay up to 72 hours, and you can open your car doors with the peace of mind that you'll have space without feeling cramped/risking of scratching other cars.

the walk from the car park to the visitor centre is scenic and relaxing, the 15 minutes fly by! There is plenty of space for dogs and prams.

the visitor centre is small but very informative, we saw examples of tools used back in the days to build the tunnel, and watched a very interesting video about its history.

the cafe has plenty of seating outside, offering a scenic view and fresh air, whilst inside you have a lot of rustic tables in a relaxed atmosphere. The prices are reasonable and staff are friendly!

the boat trip experience was great, Stuart had such a great sense of humour and he provided so much interesting information about the tunnel, whilst making things hilarious at the same time. We paid £8 per adult and I found this very reasonable. The boat was in a good condition and we enjoyed the opportunity to sit at the front and take some footage of the tunnel, whilst having the option to go back inside and take a seat when there were sections of water dripping!

there is a play area for children, with a view to the canal, and you'll be treated to a train passing by every 5-10 minutes! Stunning place.

Overall, I highly recommend coming here for a day out, the kids will enjoy it and you will too! To see what our day was like, I invite you to watch our YouTube video.

Thank you to all the staff at Standedge Tunnel and Visitor Centre for looking...

We didn’t do the tunnel ride, so can’t comment about that. We did visit the Watersedge Coffee House, and TBH, the order process was a chaotic. We went in to the main coffee house building at Approx 11:50am and waited in line in a queue. When we got to the order point just after Noon, they’d stopped taking any savoury food orders, as the Pizza tent outside was taking orders from Noon. We therefore ordered 2 coffees and a small cake. This was paid for and taken outside, and I sat down, my wife queued at the tent. This order process and cooking took approx 25 minutes, the quality of the Pizzas was good, but the price was high at around £20 for 2. Needless to say, my wife’s coffee was cold by the time she got to sit down. There was no offer to allow anyone to go and sit down while their order was being completed. We visited the Museum, which I found interesting and informative. Overall, we did enjoy our visit, but the experience was marred by the poor customer experience at the cafe, as far as we are concerned there is much room for improvement. UPDATE! The CRT have been in touch with me regarding this review, their representative has told me that he’d spoken to the people that run the Watersedge Coffee House, and that they were sorry for our poor experience, and were putting in place a buzzer system to allow customers the opportunity to return to the Pizza Tent when their order is ready. I truly hope that they’re able to improve the system so that customers can enjoy their produce. I appreciate the concern, and wish them well in the future running of the...

I visited on Friday 27th September 2024, having driven up the night before and stayed at a nearby B&B. Parking at the nearby Marsden Station was free but appeared limited to about 5 bays. No nearer publicly accessible parking was available apart from disabled parking. As it is, it's a 15-minute walk to the Tunnel and Cafe, along the well-signposted canal towpath. As listed elsewhere the Visitor Centre has been converted into a music venue, but the cafe has been taken over by the volunteers who run the canal tunnel boat trips after the previous leaseholders closed the business. I booked my tunnel trip in advance on the website which is a good idea as it lets the volunteers know that there is a paying customer on a scheduled service. As it was there were only 5 of us on the trip but that just meant we had more room to move about. The 2 volunteers who provided commentary during the short incursion into the initial parts of the tunnel (it was three miles long and would take 2 hours to get to the other end) were excellent and the only strange aspect was that you were not allowed to video the trip, but it isn't stated why. The cafe was open and staffed by other volunteers and was excellent. It's worth a visit at any time. I also purchased a lovely quirky bird box made of a teapot made by one of our trip...