Wiltshire was planed for last weekend but due to hangovers and general lateness ,myself and Datsun headed on down Dover way armed with nothing more than a 100yr old map.
Arriving in a very wet Folkstone we scoured the cliffs and checked out some martello Towers and a locked ROC.
I was sure we were in the wrong place and a helpful coast gaurd pointed us in the general direction.The tide was on the way out but i was being impatient so a bit of cliff scrabbling and we found the enterance.
Many proposals had been made for a Channel Tunnel dating as far back as Napoleonic times and in 1875 serious planning began on both sides of the Channel. However, early attempts on the English side were not very successful and flooding was a continual problem. In 1880 a test shaft was sunk at Abbot’s Cliff near Folkestone, followed by a second shaft at Shakespeare Cliff in 1881. The tunnel was expected to be completed by 1886, but the British Government were beginning to grow increasingly concerned that the Tunnel would render Britain extremely vulnerable in the face of an invading army from Europe (by this time recently unified Germany were perceived as posing the greatest military threat to Britain). The government remained concerned; very little work proceeded after 1882 and the project was forcibly abandoned in 1898 when bring was permanently restrained through the High Court.
One of the many Martello towers on the south coast
The start of the tunnel into the cliff
Intersection of enterance tunnel and bore tunnel,very warm and moist....nice smell of creasote
Area where tunnel boring machine was constructed
Boring machine in its full glory
Start of tunnel ,fairly dry
Collapsing Chalk
My Precious....Datsun doing his best Gollum impression
Damn graffitti Artists
As far as we got,its a lot deeper than it looks
Experienced welly fail at this point and almost dropped my camera so we headed back,there's plenty to see in dover so i'm sure we will be back.
This is probably the messiest place iv'e been and i looked like i had been shat on by a thousands seagulls
Arriving in a very wet Folkstone we scoured the cliffs and checked out some martello Towers and a locked ROC.
I was sure we were in the wrong place and a helpful coast gaurd pointed us in the general direction.The tide was on the way out but i was being impatient so a bit of cliff scrabbling and we found the enterance.
Many proposals had been made for a Channel Tunnel dating as far back as Napoleonic times and in 1875 serious planning began on both sides of the Channel. However, early attempts on the English side were not very successful and flooding was a continual problem. In 1880 a test shaft was sunk at Abbot’s Cliff near Folkestone, followed by a second shaft at Shakespeare Cliff in 1881. The tunnel was expected to be completed by 1886, but the British Government were beginning to grow increasingly concerned that the Tunnel would render Britain extremely vulnerable in the face of an invading army from Europe (by this time recently unified Germany were perceived as posing the greatest military threat to Britain). The government remained concerned; very little work proceeded after 1882 and the project was forcibly abandoned in 1898 when bring was permanently restrained through the High Court.
One of the many Martello towers on the south coast
The start of the tunnel into the cliff
Intersection of enterance tunnel and bore tunnel,very warm and moist....nice smell of creasote
Area where tunnel boring machine was constructed
Boring machine in its full glory
Start of tunnel ,fairly dry
Collapsing Chalk
My Precious....Datsun doing his best Gollum impression
Damn graffitti Artists
As far as we got,its a lot deeper than it looks
Experienced welly fail at this point and almost dropped my camera so we headed back,there's plenty to see in dover so i'm sure we will be back.
This is probably the messiest place iv'e been and i looked like i had been shat on by a thousands seagulls
