So, the underground tunnels...

[J.R.]

I'm still on quite often... but work have now changed their security settings for the net... this means that forums are barred but blogs aren't anymore...

Strange really!

Thats work for you, Plummo !

I also understand your 'works' had £15.5million invested in a certain Icelandic bank. Oooops !

At least M.V.D.C. didn't, even if S.C.C. did !

[Great Plum]

Yes indeed, and they invested £4m of it only a month before the place went belly up!

[BEANY]

The tube went all way out to the station (if you go down the steps you can see where they blocked off the tunnel). It runs under most of the original buildings (someone once released a stink bomb in chapel from under the floor). What I want to know is if it went out to Sharpenhurst as legend suggetsed. There was a vent that people used to climb to have parties in and it was "supposedly" linked by the tube at one point. We never discovered if this was true. As for the asbestos we always considered it to be a fabrication to discourage us from venturing down there.

It is very likely that there was a tunnel carrying water pipes from the Sharpenhurst well to the school water tower I never saw any above ground.These would need to be inspected for maintenance puposes.There was a
calibrated level board at the top of Sharpenhurst that could be seen from the ground level of the water tower.The water in the tower obviously had its level with that in the reservoir.It was necessary to know these levels as the water supplied
the boiler house and steam driven dynamos alongside the swimming pool. The school kitchen was fed with steam for cooking too.Steam also provided the whole school hot water sysem as well as the laundery with the necessary heat. So the levels had to be maintained or there could have been an explosion!
The steam engines had three cylinders and were of a compound nature so that as the steam pressure dropped the cylinders were of larger diamter to maintain the power output. They produced DC for the school mains as well as charging the battery banks to maintain the electric supply overnight whent he steam plant was shut down by the estate manager.

[huggermugger]

Love this thread... what is it about secret tunnels that fires the imagination so much? What makes me laugh is that most of us spend a lifetime never finding them but living off rumours & myths and you lot had them and still surround them with rumour & myth! My DS (currently at CH) has never seen them & knows very little about them. (Not even really interested in talking about them...)

I did find this http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/Sec ... 4174623.jp where apparently the HM conducts a guided tour but rather frustratingly the video link doesn't work for me!

As for the chemical explosions - a bit of a recurring theme past and present. I had a series of texts last year from my DS describing the discovery of a leaking substance in a storeroom in the old Science School which led the evacuation of the whole of Quad and the attendance of three fire engines, a water tanker, two fire chief cars and a chemical response team. They were there for a couple of hours and he and his friends were frankly thrilled to bits... He thinks it was Sodium or Lithium.

[Ajarn Philip]

Love this thread... what is it about secret tunnels that fires the imagination so much? What makes me laugh is that most of us spend a lifetime never finding them but living off rumours & myths and you lot had them and still surround them with rumour & myth!

How very true!

The last house I owned in the UK (or anywhere else, come to think of it...) was in Dover, at the foot of the cliffs beneath the castle, part of a small terrace behind the approach to the eastern Docks. It was a tall (5 stories), narrow house built in about 1820. It was a bit disconcerting living at the foot of a high chalk cliff with only about 30' of garden, but I used the infallible argument that if the place was still standing after nearly 200 years, it would probably continue to do so for many more. The insurance company seemed to take a similar view. In any case, the cliffs are half concrete now, and have sensors all over the place to detect any sign of erosion. Apparently.

Anyway, at the foot of the garden was a bricked up cave entrance. Bricked up by English Heritage, or whichever organisation is responsible for the cliffs, as it was one of several entrances to a network of tunnels riddling the White Cliffs of Dover on several levels. This particular entry apparently led to a large cavern that was used as an air-raid shelter and hospital during the War. The previous owners of the house told us that every now and then some lost soul would appear in their garden looking dazed and confused. And that, sadly, is why all access was bricked up. I was often tempted to, erm, assist the blocked entrance to collapse (I wonder how long it would have been before anyone found out?), but unfortunately never quite got round to it.

[michael scuffil]

I did find this http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/Sec ... 4174623.jp where apparently the HM conducts a guided tour but rather frustratingly the video link doesn't work for me!

Don't think it works for anyone.

[huggermugger]

Sigh... destined never to go underground with the HM...

[sejintenej]

Love this thread... what is it about secret tunnels that fires the imagination so much? What makes me laugh is that most of us spend a lifetime never finding them but living off rumours & myths and you lot had them and still surround them with rumour & myth!

re: Dover

Anyway, at the foot of the garden was a bricked up cave entrance. Bricked up by English Heritage, or whichever organisation is responsible for the cliffs, as it was one of several entrances to a network of tunnels riddling the White Cliffs of Dover on several levels. This particular entry apparently led to a large cavern that was used as an air-raid shelter and hospital during the War. .

Gibraltar has several - one used to be a hospital and in my day was used for concerts. The other one I explored was along the north face of the rock and had openings for the cannon protecting the rock from Spanish invasion. On the rock itself are huge water catchment areas, the water being stored in caves inside the rock. I believe that there is another publicly referred to one high up on the rock and ...............

[J.R.]

Dover

[Ajarn Philip]

Folkestone

[Foureyes]

I used to look after a large number of government-owned tunnels (a.k.a. "holes in the ground"), most of which have been sold off now. One of the problems was that the vast majority of these tunnels were classified as "secret" (at least) and in both WW2 and the Cold War secrecy was such that one department seldom told any other department where their tunnels were. A consequence was that nobody really knew where ALL the tunnels were - and probably doesn't, even today. One quick story. In the late 1970s a patriotic farmer rolled up to an Army district HQ and enquired very politely if it was possible to talk about General Montgomery's HQ yet? He told us where this HQ was and we checked all our lists and there it wasn't. So, off we went on a recce, all of us wearing chukka boots, cavalry twill trousers,British Warm overcoats and trilby hats, and carrying perspex-covered mapboards, so that nobody could possibly guess that we were Army officers. And there it was - a blooming great complex inside a hill. The "hole" was so large that we had to get the Royal Engineers to clean it up, sort it out, make it safe, and so on. After a lot of research we worked out that it had been built in 1943/44 as an alternative HQ for Monty if he had decided to control the D-day landings from a buried HQ. He didn't, so the hole was promptly vacated, the doors locked, all the papers (still classified secret) filed away and then (presumably) destroyed, while the keys were lost. So, by the 1970s only our loyal and patriotic farmer knew where it was. Heigh ho!
They say that you are never more than ten feet from a rat. Well, I can assure you that in southern England you are seldom more than a mile away from a tunnel and possibly more than one.

[J.R.]

I used to look after a large number of government-owned tunnels (a.k.a. "holes in the ground"), most of which have been sold off now.

Dead canny those Germans !

They were always known for nicking other peoples tunnels when no-one was watching !

[huggermugger]

I used to look after a large number of government-owned tunnels (a.k.a. "holes in the ground"), most of which have been sold off now. One of the problems was that the vast majority of these tunnels were classified as "secret" (at least) and in both WW2 and the Cold War secrecy was such that one department seldom told any other department where their tunnels were. A consequence was that nobody really knew where ALL the tunnels were - and probably doesn't, even today. One quick story. In the late 1970s a patriotic farmer rolled up to an Army district HQ and enquired very politely if it was possible to talk about General Montgomery's HQ yet? He told us where this HQ was and we checked all our lists and there it wasn't. So, off we went on a recce, all of us wearing chukka boots, cavalry twill trousers,British Warm overcoats and trilby hats, and carrying perspex-covered mapboards, so that nobody could possibly guess that we were Army officers. And there it was - a blooming great complex inside a hill. The "hole" was so large that we had to get the Royal Engineers to clean it up, sort it out, make it safe, and so on. After a lot of research we worked out that it had been built in 1943/44 as an alternative HQ for Monty if he had decided to control the D-day landings from a buried HQ. He didn't, so the hole was promptly vacated, the doors locked, all the papers (still classified secret) filed away and then (presumably) destroyed, while the keys were lost. So, by the 1970s only our loyal and patriotic farmer knew where it was. Heigh ho!
They say that you are never more than ten feet from a rat. Well, I can assure you that in southern England you are seldom more than a mile away from a tunnel and possibly more than one.

I so want to know where that hole is!

[Jo]

Was it this very well hidden one?

http://gallery.future-i.com/comedy/pic:nuclear-bunker/

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

There were, and possibly still are, excavations which were still being used in the 50s (When I was in the businass of Explosives !) to store Army explosives, Ammunition, etc. The term for the controlling Depot was a C.A.D( Central Ammunition Depot.) It appears that Chalk was the preferred Medium.
They are, of course situated at ---------who are these strange men visiting me ? AAAAARGH !