JJ's ''Going Underground''

I was trying to ignore DC's post, for once:lbf:

Jukebox Jury

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There's a secret door near Victoria station, near some now defunct offices.

Or there was....

What was it like down in the tunnels? You should of popped up in Victoria Station to say hello.
 
There's a secret door near Victoria station, near some now defunct offices.

Or there was....

What was it like down in the tunnels? You should of popped up in Victoria Station to say hello.

There used to be an entrance via a door in a gents public convenience:eek: near the Cathedral. Since the loo's have gone, entrance is now via a man hole....though I don't know where exactly.

It was surprisingly mild down there...everyone wrapped up but it was not cold. It had an ery atmosphere to it as you might expect and everyone was full of anticipation of the unknown and the excitement of being down there for the first time.:guitar:

Jukebox Jury
 
So you are not envious of my ownership of a drumstick signed by the one and only ''Mike Joyce'':cool::thumb:

Jukebox Jury

You know I'm veggie so I hate the idea of drumsticks:rolleyes:

Where are your pictures?
Get down to Williamson's Tunnels!
 
You know I'm veggie so I hate the idea of drumsticks:rolleyes:

Where are your pictures?
Get down to Williamson's Tunnels!

Ahhh, but it's a Quorn drumstick:thumb:

No pictures, didn't see the point - looked at a few pictures taken on peoples cameras and there was nothing much to see other than the lights of torches everywhere!
Have you looked at the BBC clip I posted on page 1. That shows it all really (obviously I saw more)

Why would I want to go Liverpool's tunnels? They were only built to keep the dole figures down:lbf::D

Jukebox Jury
 
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if one were so inclined, could one find their own way into and around this place? or is a guide a necessity? also, can you let me know when the next tour is (secretly, like)? :thumb:
 
why did they build the ones in Manchester?

Different tunnels for different reasons. (wow, never thought there would be so much interest in this thread:))
The one I went into was a dissued underground canal linking the Irwell to the Rochdale canal so they didnt have to unload goods, transport them a few hundred yards and then load them onto another boat etc. A few decades later, the trains took over and transport by water was in much less demand, the tunnel became too expensive to maintain so it shut in early 1900's.
Then adapted and used as air raid shelters in WW2.

There are other, deeper tunnels..... Manchester's original streets lay pretty much at the level of the water line on the Irwell and each time the floods came, the streets and houses were just swamped. So the streets and houses were simply 'built over' to raise the level of the streets. The original streets and houses are still there.....doors and windows bricked up, but still there!

There are other stories that there was a tax on bringing cattle through the streets to sell at market (because they shat all over the road which had to be cleaned up..... so they were brought through tunnels from the river and taken to market underground to keep the streets clean and avoid paying the taxes!

if one were so inclined, could one find their own way into and around this place? or is a guide a necessity? also, can you let me know when the next tour is (secretly, like)? :thumb:

Yesterday's entrance is only possible via one entrance which is accessed via a business premises, so I couldn't now simply go there tomorrow and say ''Can I go down there for an hour''. Although it was an ''undercover tour'' (no pun intended) obviosly this was done in arrangement with that business.
There were two tours (we left as the other came in) and the last one they did was Halloween so they are not that frequant. It was also free, so credit to the company for not charging...and the carpet was a bit messy when we came out!

The tunnels near the cathedral, entrance is via a manhole cover.... someone said yesterday it is quite prominant near the cathedral and you can tell it from other manhole covers. So you could simply do that one yourself if you wished, but if seen going down it, you can get into trouble for tresspassing. i'm pretty certain that is the entrance seen on the second tunnel on the BBC clip I posted on page 1.

In case of a nuclear war. Methinks..

The tunnel under Piccadilly Gardens is an (obsolete) nuclear bunker built for 200 people. The GPO have all their telecommunications cables and connections down there. because of this very few visitors have been down there. Rumour has it that there is one entrance (which I know is via lift in a building on Back George Street and then a long sloping walk) and two escape tunnels in different directions from the shelter.... both over a mile long:eek: One is said to surface in Ardwick, the other in Salford near the old hospital on the Crescent

All of this (and there are more down there) is the reason why Manchester has never been able to have an underground rail system linking Piccadilly station with Victoria station.
Victoria station has the River Irk running underneath it as it flows into the Irwell.....but from the river's tunnel, there are two or three other shafts leading off towards the city centre. Since the station was built, the shafts were filled in. Recent excavations discovered lots of traces of coal in there, leaving experts to believe they were used to transport the fuel to different parts of the city.

Jukebox Jury
 
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The tunnel under Piccadilly Gardens is an (obsolete) nuclear bunker. The GPO have all their cables and connections down there. because of this very few visitors have been down there. Rumour has it that there are one entrance (which I know is via lift in a building on Back George Street) and two escape tunnels in different directions from the shelter.... both over a mile long:eek:Jukebox Jury

A mile long? :eek:

I want to go on this (obsolete) nuclear bunker tour. :censored:
 
There are other, deeper tunnels..... Manchester's original streets lay pretty much at the level of the water line on the Irwell and each time the floods came, the streets and houses were just swamped. So the streets and houses were simply 'built over' to raise the level of the streets. The original streets and houses are still there.....doors and windows bricked up, but still there!

That's amazing... I would love to go urban spelunking down there. Open up some of those time capsule houses.

Similar thing happened in Chicago. After the city burned to the ground in 1871, they created a master plan for rebuilding which included raising the downtown several stories over the swampy ground. They built a huge system of tunnels. Part of the master plan was the freight for stores and businesses in the central business district ("The Loop") would be offloaded from rail cars on the west side of the Loop and shifted via carts and light rail to the businesses. Over time, the system fell into disuse, and many tunnels were bricked over and forgotten in 2nd and 3rd subbasements.

Until one fateful day in 1992... workers driving pilings in the river accidentally punched through the roof of a tunnel. River water poured through the hole, gushing up into basements all over the downtown area, and even flooding the subway train tunnels. I wasn't living in the city at the time, but you could see the river draining out in a swirl like a bathtub. They finally got the hole patched, but it caused almost two billion dollars in damage.

I love forgotten history like this. My great dream is to inherit a mysterious locked desk containing someone's papers.
 
A mile long? :eek:

I want to go on this (obsolete) nuclear bunker tour. :censored:

Forget it. No chance. No one has a chance. Because of the telecommunications stuff going on down there...it is classified as ''don't even think about it'':(

Ten years ago I did research on the bunker. Found two articles in the early 1980's from the MEN where a young radical councillor...Mr Patrick Karney... was demanding the shelter be opened up to the public...and if it wasn't..... he wanted to know why.....
So some 15 years later, I contacted the now high ranking Mr Karney and asked him what hapened to his ranting and raving about the bunker being opened up to the public......
2 letters (with copies of the MEN articles) and a fax proved fruitless..... a phone call to his office, had a youngish sounding lad (I'm not implying anything here Mr Karney:thumb:) answering and said ''oh yes, he has received your correspondence..... he doesn't know anything about a nuclear bunker'':eek:
I'm like....''what about the MEN articles?''
And got the same reply.

Jukebox Jury
 
That's amazing... I would love to go urban spelunking down there. Open up some of those time capsule houses.

Similar thing happened in Chicago. After the city burned to the ground in 1871, they created a master plan for rebuilding which included raising the downtown several stories over the swampy ground. They built a huge system of tunnels. Part of the master plan was the freight for stores and businesses in the central business district ("The Loop") would be offloaded from rail cars on the west side of the Loop and shifted via carts and light rail to the businesses. Over time, the system fell into disuse, and many tunnels were bricked over and forgotten in 2nd and 3rd subbasements.

Until one fateful day in 1992... workers driving pilings in the river accidentally punched through the roof of a tunnel. River water poured through the hole, gushing up into basements all over the downtown area, and even flooding the subway train tunnels. I wasn't living in the city at the time, but you could see the river draining out in a swirl like a bathtub. They finally got the hole patched, but it caused almost two billion dollars in damage.

I love forgotten history like this. My great dream is to inherit a mysterious locked desk containing someone's papers.

WOW:eek:
Not heard that one before! Thanks

Jukebox Jury
 
Forget it. No chance. No one has a chance. Because of the telecommunications stuff going on down there...it is classified as ''don't even think about it'':(

Ten years ago I did research on the bunker. Found two articles in the early 1980's from the MEN where a young radical councillor...Mr Patrick Karney... was demanding the shelter be opened up to the public...and if it wasn't..... he wanted to know why.....
So some 15 years later, I contacted the now high ranking Mr Karney and asked him what hapened to his ranting and raving about the bunker being opened up to the public......
2 letters (with copies of the MEN articles) and a fax proved fruitless..... a phone call to his office, had a youngish sounding lad (I'm not implying anything here Mr Karney:thumb:) answering and said ''oh yes, he has received your correspondence..... he doesn't know anything about a nuclear bunker'':eek:
I'm like....''what about the MEN articles?''
And got the same reply.

Jukebox Jury

God, I used to live next door to Pat Karney in 94/96. He was very hospitable and one of my regrets was leaving that flat in the city centre. If only, if only..:(

The flat was in the 'Northern Quarter' right near the Craft and Design centre. Jeez, if I'd had bought that dwelling under the 'right to buy scheme' then I'd be a rich man by now. Ahh well, a lot of us have regrets. :tears:
I bet he would have took me on a personal guided tour. ;)
 
It's just another place built on top of another and soon the next generation will be building on us and blah, blah.... Well, that's what I think anyway.

We were digging in our gaff a few months ago and came across a WW2 bunker, some childrens toys, some books, some pots and pans. etc. and a secret door. The door leads to the pub down the road. Heh, the Victorians, eh!
 
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