As a bit of a fan of tunnels under London, I am often asked about the oft-rumoured tube tunnel that allegedly links Buckingham Palace to, depending on the rumour, Downing Street or Green Park.

It is claimed that the tube was built so that the Royal Family can escape in times of war or insurrection.

Sadly, the rumours are utterly unfounded.

There are indeed some tunnels under London that are pseudo-secret, but they can be inferred from sealed files in the National Archives or provable tales from the people who built them in the first place.

However, Annie Mole carried a report about The Queen visiting Aldgate station yesterday to unveil a memorial plaque for the July 7th bombings. Her Majesty was also photographed standing next to a specially mocked up tube station sign that read “Buckingham Palace”.

I give it all of about 15 minutes before that photo is cited by tin-foil wearing brigade as PROOF that there is a secret tube station at Buckingham Palace.

If you want to read about the real “secret tunnel” under Whitehall – click here.

Update: In the time it took me to type this (inc coffee breaks), someone has already questioned the existence of a tube tunnel under Buckingham Palace on Annie Mole’s photo!

Lurking not too far from where I live is a subterranean marvel that is considered to be one of the most important locations in engineering history. I am referring to the currently closed off East London Line railway – for the tunnel it runs through under the Thames is world’s first (successful) sub-aqueous tunnel.

Not too far from the Rotherhithe tunnel is the Brunel Museum situated within an old pumping station, but conveniently next to the original deep shaft that Marc Brunel (father of more famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel) sunk into the clay soil to get down to the depth where the tunnel would stretch out under the river.

I won’t relate the torturous history of the tunnel itself – as that is amply told elsewhere, for my visit to was not to the tunnel but to the remains of that original shaft.

I arrived at at the museum just as a lot of people were filing out to go to the shaft, so I ahem, joined the crowd. I’ve been in the museum before as they used to run tours of the two key stations, Rotherhithe and Wapping and take a slow train between them.

As part of the refurbishment of the tunnels for the overland railway, the shaft, which has always been empty from surface to deep underground has had a slab of concrete installed and the upper space will be handed over to the museum to clean up and turn into an extension. As the slab was finished off only a few weeks ago – the opportunity here was to see the interior of the shaft before it is cleaned up again.

Getting in for visitors will be down a replica of the original stair case that lined the tunnel when it was open to pedestrians – but our access was through a tiny door that you quite literally had to crawl through and then down some scaffolding to the floor, which is about 3 stories below its roofline (and about 2 stories below ground).

Here lots of photos were taken and a volunteer gave us a brief run through why the shaft is so important in engineering history and some details of its construction.

In essence, they had a huge metal ring, upon which they started building a high wall. As the wall got heavier, it started sinking into the soft soil – aided by workers inside digging out that soil. More bricks added, and the shaft continues to sink into the ground. At one point it got stuck and even adding 50,000 bricks to the top of the shaft wouldn’t unstick the gigantic pipe.

Here there seems to be two variants of the solution – in essence, water leaking into the shaft normally lubricated the sides and one weekend the whole thing dropped down several metres. Whether this was an accidental switching off of the water pumps over a weekend that had a fortuitous outcome, or a deliberate decision seems to vary depending on who is telling the tale.

The shaft finally at its required depth, the tunnel under the river could be cut out. A similar shaft on the north side was also built – although two more shaft, four times wider to allow horses down to the tunnel never got built as some idiot stuck a bridge at Tower Hill and ruined the finances of the tunnel.

Talk over and a climb back out through the tiny exit, and that was it. A short visit, but this subterranean geek was bouncing with delight to have been able to have a look around.

I took a quick look around the museum and picked up a guide book that I would have brought last time I was there, only they couldn’t take cards and I was out of cash on the day. I also had a long chat with one of the staff about the pneumatic railway I am researching and he mentioned something about its precursor at Crystal Palace I wasn’t aware of. More research needed. Yay!

It was a shame we couldn’t go down to the original tunnels – but I have done a slow train tour through there before courtesy of the museum.

A slight rant – they let people into the shaft through a really tiny doorway – and yet other underground structures with significantly easier access points refuse to open up for the public visits due to “health & safety” concerns. That really annoys me as it quite evidently isn’t a problem.

As usual – more photos over at Flickr.

This is probably more the remit of The Greenwich Phantom, but as part of the Greenwich foot tunnel lies on MY side of the river, and this concerns a particular bugbear of mine, I shall talk about it.

The tunnel, for those who are not familiar with it is a 100 year old tunnel under the river linking Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs, and has lifts/stairs at each end.

I rarely take the lift down on the north side, as that seems a bit lazy, but occasionally I treat myself – and a while ago noticed in passing that a Health and Safety notice in the lift had been amended to state that photography was banned in the tunnel.

Thinking about it, I was sure there was a ban on flash photography, but now it seems to have been recently changed to a complete ban on all photography. Today though, the southern lift on the Greenwich side was actually working for once – although the operator in the lift was on the phone to someone and it seemed it was about to be turned off again.

Inside was a large, newish looking sign warning that photography is banned – but the health & safety sign was still unedited, and my suspicions were proved correct. The original sign only banned flash photography!

For some reason, over the past few months someone has decided that an existing (if dubious) ban on flash photography for health and safety reasons has to be expanded to a complete ban on all photography in the tunnel.

I’ve always been curious about the ban on flash photography as this is just a foot tunnel and hardly likely to cause anything more serious than a bit of annoyance to fellow walkers – and a lot less annoyance than screaming kids – but a total ban on all photography?

I use the tunnel a lot, and people are always taking photos down there without people dying or getting injured. An artist at the local market even sells rather somewhat arty photos of the tunnel.

What dire calamity has befallen the tunnel in the past few months that caused the H&S nazis to immediately clamp down on photography in the tunnel to prevent repeat of this mystery disaster?

The infamous (amongst tunnel/military aficionados) tunnels under Chancery Lane are to be put up for sale at last. I have been aware that BT were working on decommissioning them for some time, and was trying to find out who was handling the sale – only for them to put out a press release about the sale today.

I have a serious business idea for the tunnels – which do not (alas) involve turning them into a tourist attraction – but the current economic turmoil in the city makes that less viable, but not totally silly. Most of the deep level tunnels which were emptied out have been converted into secure document storage facilities, but my business plan was a bit more techie.

Anyhow – now that the tunnels have been cleared out of the secret stuff we can’t see, such as the claimed section occupied by the security services for a while, it will be interesting to see if BT let people go down for public tours during the disposal process.

Weblinks:

BT press release

Sub Brit report

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, more famous in the UK for owning a football club than being a Russian businessman who did rather well out of some dodgy privatisations has reportedly ordered the world’s largest Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM).

At 19 metres wide – it eclipses the current largest machine which comes in at a “puny” 15.43 metres.

To put that into context – London’s newest tube network, the Jubilee Line is 4.35 metres wide and Crossrail will be 6 metres wide.

Football fans will be relieved to know that he isn’t planning on using it on the football pitch at Chelsea.

Link:

The Local