Did you know there is a tunnel running deep under Trafalgar Square? Nope, neither did I as it happens!

I had been told that the fountains in Trafalgar Sq were fed by ground water, but like many of the things we are told as kids, we might not think as adults to check if they are correct until maybe prompted by a pub quiz or the like.

I was not prompted by a pub quiz this time, but by trawling through my recent deliveries of the Illustrated London News, of 1845 – and yes, indeed the fountains are, or more correctly – WERE, powered by water taken direct from the ground.

The whole system was replaced in the 1930s with mains supply water as the artesian wells never really lived up the hype when first switched on. The two original red granite fountains were replaced with the pale grey stone basins at the same time – and the originals are now in Canada.

Anyhow, back to the tunnels – two deep shafts were drilled down to the water table – one in Trafalgar Square itself, and one behind the National Gallery – and then linked up deep underground by a fairly sizeable 6 feet wide tunnel. Although a “mere” water tank, the length and size of the structure is quite impressive.

Considering that this deep-level tunnel “tube tunnel” was constructed some 40 years before the first tube train tunnel, this is a quite incredible feat of engineering.

Below is a transcript of the news item from the Illustrated London News, as usual click on the images for larger versions.

THE FOUNTAINS IN TRAFALGAR-SQUARE

On Tuesday morning last at seven o’clock, Mr. Barry, the architect, attended by the engineers of the above works, and other scientific gentlemen, with a few members of the Government, met in Trafalgar-square, to witness the playing of the fountains, at various heights, and to inspect the engines connected therewith. The experiments were perfectly satisfactory; and it was then decided that the jets should commence playing at noon on Saturday (this day). The present is, therefore, the best opportunity for introducing to our readers the details of this truly scientific embellishment of our metropolis, which has so long exercised the curiosity of the public, as well as the good humour of those accustomed to cater for their gratification, literary and otherwise.

The disposition of the beautiful area of Trafalgar-square, unquestionably one of the finest sites in the metropolis, will be best understood by the large engraving below; and we proceed to the details requisite to the entire appreciation of the fidelity and minuteness of the accompanying illustrations, merely premising that a twofold object has been attained in this improvement – the embellishment of the Square and the more useful object of a better supply of water to certain of the Government establishments.

THE ARTESIAN WELLS

The wells for supplying the water to the Fountains and Government offices, are sunk on the principle of those generally termed Artesian. These are perpendicular borings into the earth, through the impervious to the porous strata, though which the water has percolated, and accumulated in large quantities. The shaft being made, the imprisoned water, in its endeavor to find its own level, rises through the strata to the surface of the soil, producing a continuous flow or stream of pure water. This effect would have been produced in these we are describing, and in all others similarly formed, were it not from the number of other wells which have been sunk for the various breweries, manufactories, and general consumption of London, having so greatly reduced the quantity, that the remaining water is not capable, through its slowness of percolation, of rising higher than to about a hundred feet below the surface, thus rendering it necessary to use force to raise it to the required height.

The water for the Artesian Wells of the metropolis is derived from the rains which fall in the central valley of Holmsdale – a district of about ten miles extent, running to the east and west of Reigate, in Surrey. This valley is formed to the north by the great chalk range, and to the south, and along its whole width, by sand hills, which rise form beneath the chalk strata. These sands absorb the rain-water, but are prevented from parting with it by the stiff clays of the weald upon which they rest. The water thus obtained runs beneath the bed of the chalk, is partially absorbed by its lower surface, and forms, on reaching the site of London, a grand reservoir, at a depth of upwards of 250 feet beneath the valley of the Thames.

At the back of Trafalgar-square there are two wells, one in Orange-street, and the other in front of the National Gallery. The bores of these wells, to the depth of 175 feet, are, the former 6 feet, and the latter, 4 feet 6 inches in diameter these are connected together at the depth of 170 feet, by a tunnel, 880 feet long and 6 feet in diameter, and capable of containing about 70,000 gallons of water. Below this bore, at the Orange-street well, is a smaller one, to the depth of about 300 feet, whilst that in front of the National gallery is 395 feet deep. The strata through which the operation of boring has passed will be seen in the accompanying sections.

THE PUMPING ENGINES

The machinery for working the wells, for throwing the jet, and for the supply of the various offices, consists of two engines – a large Cornish one, and a smaller inverted direct-action engine. The larger one is for all the general purposes of supply, as well for the fountains as consumption, and has attached to its beam three rods, working as many pumps. The rod A is attached to a pump, which raises the water from the wells for the supply of the public offices, &c. The connecting rod B is attached to a pump capable of lifting from 500 to 800 gallons of water per minute, into a large tank or reservoir for playing the fountains.

The smaller engine, C, is built on the direct-action principle, working with the cylinder inverted and leaving the piston rod immediately attacked to the pump rods. It is extremely simple in its construction, but remarkably effective in its action. Its operations are confirmed to the changing of the water for the fountains, but its principle use is, as a reserve engine, for supplying the public buildings with the necessary quantity of water, in the event of the larger one being out of repair. The two engines are worked by two boilers, fitter with Jucke’s patent smoke-consuming furnaces, by which means such works are enabled to be carried on in the centre of the metropolis without subjecting the inhabitants to the annoyance of smoke.

The wells and tunnel, when at rest will hold about 122,000 gallons of water; and some idea may be formed of the supply of the liquid from the fact that 300 gallons per minute raised for thirty hours in succession, lowered the water in the wells only 50 feet; thus leaving an amount of water stil in reserve of upwards of 91,000 gallons. The water is of an excellent quality, soft and pure; the Reform Club and Club Chambers have been supplied by the same source, and its goodness and purity have been highly commended.

THE FOUNTAINS

The fountains are from the designs of Mr. Barry, and are executed of Aberdeen or Peterhead granite, by Messrs. Macdonald and Leslie, of Aberdeen. The granite is peculiar for the redness of its colour, as well as from it hardness and durability, and is capable of receiving a very high polish. These qualities are owing to the almost total absence of mica in the composition of the granite – quartz and feltspar being its chief constituents, and the latter, in proportions which rival the rich flesh-coloured granites of Egypt.

The design is simple, but chaste and elegant. A massive curved octagonal base, upon which are four dolphins’ heads and fins, supports a magnificent flat vase, from the centre of which rises a pedestal supporting a smaller, but similar vase, and in its center is places the granite mouth for the jet. From this mouth the water is thrown up in a close stream to the desired height, when it spreads out and descends into the upper vase, from thence to the lower one, and so falls into the basin; at the same time, a flat stream issues from the mouths of each of the dolphins. The quantity thrown up by the two fountains will be 500 gallons per minute; but, when requisite, 800 or 1000 gallons can be thrown up with equal ease, in the same space of time.

The basins as the bottom add greatly to the beauty of the fountains; and it has been arranged that they shall at all times be kept brim full of transparent water.

The effect of the entire square is magnificent; but it is not such an one as woos the pedestrian to repose, or the idler to lounge. In summer, “the sun smites by day, and the cold by night;” and in winter, the biting winds make it equally intolerable. On the Continent, were a Place Grand is constantly a Place Vert, these fearful inconveniences would have been remedied by groves of trees; and we may add, that not only would the public have been benefited, but the effect of the architecture itself would have been assisted by such an arrangement in the vast promenade of Trafalgar-square.

The contract for “spouting water” is ten hours a day om the average – that is, in the summer the fountains are to play thirteen hours per day, and in the winter seven hours. The height to which the water is to be thrown will vary, according to the weather, from 25 feet to 40 feet from the ground.

The mode of procuring the water, its quantity, distribution, &c., as well as the engines and all the other apparatus connected with this undertaking, are the work of Messrs. Easton and Amos, of the Grove, Southwark, on whom the whole management reflects the highest credit. We understand that the entire cost of sinking the wells, &c., the engines, pipes, and all attendant machinery and expenses, is somewhat under £10,000, exclusive of the granite fountains; and for this, the permanent means of supplying the whole of the Government offices from Charing-cross to the new Houses of Parliament, inclusive, is insured, as well as the necessary consumption for the watering of the streets, &c.

The saving which Government will effect by this mode forms no inconsiderable item in its advantages, for the present contract for furnishing the requisite quantity of water being £500 per annum, and the sum hitherto paid to the water companies double that amount.

First published in 1962, and lauded for its in-depth study of the deep-level tube networks under London, Rails through the Clay swiftly became regarded as a Bible for tube geeks. As second-hand copies were soon exchanging hands for a significant amount, the book was updated in 1993 and re-released.

Again, out of print, the second-hand copies are sold for a usually not insubstantial amount – but recently I was lucky to pick up a copy for a negligible amount and have spent the past few weeks digesting its contents.

Often called a Bible for tube geeks for its contents, the term is doubly apt as the book itself is about the size of a decent Bible!

Without wanting to be too disparaging, tube geeks seem to come in two varieties. The first group – which I count myself to be part of – find the network interesting and are keen to learn a reasonable amount about it. The second group are the anoraks who will argue quite passionately about the size of a nut and bolt used to secure something in a train. The – to my mind – less significant the issue, the stronger the dispute it can engender!

This book is a delight for the second group – and a very dense read for the first group.

I will admit that after working through the first couple of chapters, I realised that the best way to read the book is to skip over the highly technical stuff and concentrate on the generalities. Some people might be interested in the slope angle of a specific part of a tunnel, the configuration of train layouts or the suppliers of this, that and the other – but I am not. More accurately, I might be interested if the information was in an appendix at the end of the book, but including all the details in the body of the text makes for heavy reading.

I prefer the more general wider ranging story of the network, not a written version of an excel spreadsheet.

That said, once I learnt to skip swiftly over the technical details, the rest of the book genuinely lives up to the hype and I am delighted that I finally managed to get a copy.

Running right from the beginnings of deep level tube tunnels (sub-surface rails are ignored), the book carries you right through the era of private ownership, the slow stealthy takeover by the government with the inevitable run-down of investment once taxpayers were involved, right up to the commencement of the Jubilee Line extension.

The book has lots of snippets about cancelled plans or tunnels that were built then abandoned – including details of the rarely mentioned loop at Embankment and a short-lived Jubilee Line extension idea that would have put the Isle of Dogs station at the south of the Isle, and a long way from the then-abandoned docks.

What interested me was less the technicalities and more the sort of snippets you can drop into (suitable) conversations – such as the soil dug out for the original Jubilee Line being used as landscaping for the M4 motorway, or that the tunnel rings ordered for the aborted extension were later reused for the Picadilly line extension to Heathrow Terminal 4.

These are the sorts of things I delight in learning about, and the book gave me some interesting snippets to research further.

The two authors regularly bemoan the long delays imposed by political arguments and the lack of investment, but while it is a “truth” that the railway was under-invested in during the 1980s, what comes out is that there was a massive amount of money spent on the network. We just seem to have forgotten about it, especially as fire-safety upgrades in the later part of the decade sucked away most of the money to “invisible” upgrades.

The book, re-published in 1993 ended on a high note though, as the authors were delighted to note, the Crossrail project looked likely to be on the verge of getting approval from the government.

Oh!

It might sound like a rather obscure sort of event that just a few people would be interested in – yet Londoners have leapt at the chance to walk through the Thames Tunnel at Rotherhithe this weekend.

Tickets for the evening and Saturday visits were sold out almost as soon as they were announced – with the phone line and (decrepit) website suffering under the load of requests. People are now begging for tickets almost as if they are trying to attend a pop-concert.

Thames Tunnel Ticket Touts could make a fortune tonight!

This level of interest in our deep subterranean world shouldn’t really surprise people though – as most of us have a weird fascination with the hidden and mysterious. Even the most disinterested person is going to be mildly curious in seeing what lies beyond the dark voids they occasionally see in the tunnels on their daily commute.

I have a long habit of trying to get into subterranean locations – sometimes with success – and also do a little lobbying on trying to get places opened up where I genuinely think it is possible.

That latter part has been singularly the most disappointing though – as people cry that health and safety is a worry (rarely is) or that no one would be interested (oh, boy are they interested!).

It’s even worse when I don’t even get a reply though – as then I can’t be sure if an idea was evaluated and rejected – or simply thrown in the bin without consideration.

An example of the later would be an email I sent to the DLR last year when the Xmas closure of Bank station was announced. The proposal was simple. It is just about possible to walk onto the Bank line from a side road just before it dips into the tunnel, so why not open the tunnel up to the general public to walk down over the Xmas weekend before the engineering works started?

I just knew that hundreds, if not thousands of people would have leapt at such an opportunity. Not because the tunnel is historic, but because the opportunity is rare, and the walk would be a singularly unusual event to take part in.

No reply – not even a “don’t be stupid, don’t you realise there are a hundred and one reasons why that can’t be done!”

The Thames Tunnel tour will also include a recreation of the Funfair element, but that is a mere sideshow for most people who seem to be going down under the river. It is the tunnel that is the main event here, so other opportunities to open tunnels shouldn’t be reliant on being able to put on a big show. The tunnel is the show!

Maybe the huge demand for tickets to the Thames Tunnel will encourage more openings like this where possible?

I do appreciate the problems in opening subterranean venues though – the organisation, the volunteers needed, the inevitable worries about insurance and crowd control – not to mention ensuring there are no trains using the tunnel at the time!

For that reason, despite people expressing hopes that the Thames Tunnel tour will happen again, I suspect that repeats will be unlikely, simply because you are asking train passengers to lose a fairly important cross-river link. We shouldn’t forget in our desire to visit these places that they have a primary function, and being a tourist attraction isn’t it.

I wont mention details in case plans are being plotted, but I did get a “hmm, interesting” from a suitably connected person at London Underground a year ago for a proposal to open up a bit of abandoned station and a tunnel for a weekend in a way that got around most of the health and safety worries that come from having loads of people in sometimes constrained areas.

Fingers crossed that it happens, and even if it doesn’t, at least I know someone read the email and considered the proposal. That simple act is often worth the effort, even if nothing comes of it in the end.

Warning – tickets are SOLD OUT. You can try turning up in the hope that people have spares, but that is about it. The Brunel Museum will however resume their floodlit tunnel train trips in a few months time.

In the meantime, here is my report of my visit to the tunnels.

On the weekend of the 12th-13th March, the world’s first underwater tunnel – at Rotherhithe – will be open to the general public.

Neither the Brunel Museum nor the LT Museum websites have any details – but phone the LT Museum on 020 7565 7298 and grab some tickets.

As it happens, I knew there were plans to do something prior to the line being reopened for trains, but I thought they had been cancelled.

The Brunel Museum used to take a slow tube train through the tunnels with the tunnel lights switched on to show off the structure, but this is presumed to be a walking tour through the tunnels before it is handed over to live trains again.

Woo!

Update: The LT Museum website now has details – and it is indeed a guided walking tour from one end to the other, and back again. Self-evidently, the start/stop point will be the Rotherhithe side as that is where the museum is sited – along with the soon to be refurbished shaft area.

Note – Like turning up to a nightclub wearing trainers, there is a dress code and trainers are not permitted. You need to have sturdy shoes for the tour.

On Sunday morning, the Circle Line uncurled slightly into a spiral, and to commemorate the death of the circle, a small group decided to take the very last ever train to run right round the whole circle line on the prior Saturday night.

Starting at Tower Hill and looping round the network back to Tower Hill about an hour later.

Although I had consulted widely to confirm that the timetable was correct, I popped into Tower Hill earlier that evening to double-check with the staff. I needn’t have bothered as the woman behind the counter seemed completely incapable of understanding the simple question I was asking and kept replying with the same incorrect information about the very last train to leave the station.

Fortunately, the barrier staff understood instantly what I wanted and although not sure of the exact details, agreed that my presumption sounded about right.

A few beers later with friends and over to the station, where we met up with the small contingent of fellow tube geeks who had decided to honour the dying moments of the circle line.

Although the timetable suggested 23:37 was the train to catch, the train indicator was showing delays, so when a train at roughly the right time arrived, we weren’t actually sure if it was the Very Last Train. No announcements or indications that it was The Train.

Taking a risk, we took that train and as we arrived and waited at Aldgate, the station announcer confirmed that this was indeed the Very Last Train. Much excitement!

Slowly round the line we went until we arrived at Baker Street, and took the last circle line train that would ever travel round the track from the East towards Kensington High Street.

Apart from that it was really just a trip on the circle line round to Tower Hill, although I stuck my head out at almost each station to take a photo of the platforms.There was also some amused looks from some of the fellow passengers at our (gasp!) photo snapping antics on the train.

Sadly, considering that it was the last ever trip – apart from the station announcer at Aldgate – not a single mention was made on the train or at any other stations.

Eventually arriving at Tower Hill, as we departed for the last time, a crowd got on to catch the train on its partial loop round to Liverpool St Station – oblivious to the unmarked grave of the circle line they were embarking.

Those of us who turned up were largely there due to messages on Twitter – so a live commentary was provided though the trip.

I managed to take a “souvenir” photo of most of the stations we pasted though – photos at Flickr as usual.

Thanks to everyone who came along as well – it was fun.