Old Channel Tunnel- Part 2

The earliest known plans for a Channel Tunnel date from 1802, but the first serious attempts were in the early 1880's. Several test borings were made including this one at Abbot's Cliff between Folkestone and Dover. At Shakespeare's Cliff near Dover a pilot tunnel was driven under the English Channel out to a distance of over 2000 yards. The tunnel boring experiments proved successful and gave rise to fears within the military for the safety of Britain's defences. The tunnel project was abandoned in 1882 to wait for over another hundred years before being finally completed.

 

Pointing at the tunnel wall where there is an old inscription cut into the chalk.

 

The inscription reads 'This Tunnel was beguinugn (sic) in 1880'.

 

Yet deeper into and under the chalk.

 

Some water along tunnel floor as we go deeper.

 

Some evidence of collapse now, main roof still OK.

 

More falls and water getting deeper.

 

Water deeper and completely covering tunnel floor, tunnel still stretching on

into distance- more falls of chalk could be seen in further on,

but tunnel not blocked as far as could be seen.

 

   

These two photos, taken Jan.'77, are of the trial boring in the cliff behind Martello Tower #1 at Folkestone.

The boring machine lies half buried in the chalk (in the red circle), the post to the left was a timber pit prop

that held up the roof before it collapsed. My father remembered as a boy in the 1920's being able to

squeeze past the machine into the tunnel itself, and at that time the machine was still well inside the entrance.