Question - East Goscote / Leicestershire / Tunnel System?

[roget]

Did you have a look underneath those concrete slabs? They look like they could be pried up with a crowbar or spade.

I'm back on the case and investigating where and when I can.. but live several thousand miles away.. so rely on the usual lines of communication. I used to live and play as a kid in EG and can confirm what you have kindly shared are shafts leading to the tunnels. Are you able to share any others in public or private? thank you again

 

[Sean baker]

Hi

There are still a way to the under ground railway my father in law bought a house close to railway brought land of counsil.it has a concrete hatch that leads yo old railway.

 

[Sean baker]

A lot of people like making up and fuelling silly stories, everywhere has it’s fair share of secret tunnel ones. The stuff that was sealed was storage for stuff before dispatch, they were overground structures that were buried because they were too much of a pain to demolish. My grandad worked for the company that purchased and developed the site, neither him nor anyone else ever mentioned there being anything underground. It’s all a fairly recent invention.

There is still openi g in a garden on huntmans

 

[Sean baker]

New to group but fascinated by the thread. Used to live on East Goscote for many years and was involved in the Scouts, Church, School and Parish Council. I'll try and answer some of the points raised by contributors as best I can and chuck in a few 'stories' just to liven the mix.

The building next to the crossing was a signal box, no doubt there to control the movement of trains from the depot onto the main line. It was no longer functioning during the 30 years I lived there but was still used by Network Rail when they came out to repair the automatic barriers, until it was demolished.

The concrete blocks on the playing fields, not sure about hhd two in the bushes but he others between the scout hut and the ozvillion are going to seriously disappoint you. I had to open these up with the parish council caretaker when we were trying to trace cess pits (don't ask!). Once you lift the concrete blocks you have a standard waste drainage access pint about 3 to 4 feet deep with traditional clay water pipes coming into them. No tunnels sorry.

The mounds, about 10 to 15 years ago the Parish council wanted to open up the mounds to create a youth centre for the village (at least it would have been vandal proof!) We applied to the MoD for plans of the bunkers but were told they no longer existed or were lost. We were never able to get plans nor could we obtain planning permission to open them up.

Stories:- read into these what you wish all but the last were village gossip but coming from sources I would trust.

When the scout hut was built no evidence of tunnels was found or hindered it's construction.

Stories: read into these what you will but I trust the sources.

The right hand mound was rumoured to have remained sealed under MoD instructions during Jelsons building works and is said to still contain machinery from the war. (I realise other contributers say they played in both bunkers as children so that debunks this story)

During the 70's the ventilatioshadts on the top of the mounds fell through and gad to be back filled with rubble by the council.

Next to the railway crossing on the village side there was an opening to a tunnel that ran all the way to the station in Syston and was rumoured to be the rail line used for moving munitions. It was sealed up in the kate 70's early 80's to prevent kids abusing it plus a growing problem with rats. Maybe this is the opening referred to as being in someone's grandads back garden.

Finally this came from good friends of my parents. Their father was stationed here when it was decommissioned . His job was to follow the last trucks off the compound with a gender counter to ensure that nothing 'unwanted fell off them. Now there's one for all the conspiracy pundits.

Hope this helps. Would love the stories of tunnels to be true. Only ever found burnt bricks and builders waste in our garden but you never know!

Oh, one of the original houses in the area has a well in their back garden.

Enjoy!

There's a opening g to old railway in a a garden on huntsmans land bought from counsel.

 

[mingerocket]

I've been doing some research over the last few weeks on the little pumping station on the banks of the River Wreake and at the risk of Kickstarting this thread back into life I thought I'd share what I've discovered.
The pumping station was one of 5 and it and the two structures under the "mound" are the only structures left standing.
A large amount of water was used in the factory and the river/brook were diverted to both protect the area from floodwater and facilitate the abstraction of water.

Although the stories of underground tunnel networks are likely to be codswallop there is a 36" concrete water main that runs from the area near pumphouse 5 under the railway lines and on towards the former ROF site where water was stored in a number of reservoirs/tanks

Probably not full of old munitions/mustard gas/UFOs or any of the other things that have come up from various questionable sources during my research.

 

[roget]

Very interesting, but why need so much water if they MOD according to many that nothing happened there.. when there are records of munitions and train routes to former airstrips in the region?

 

[roget]

There's a opening g to old railway in a a garden on huntsmans land bought from counsel.

Lovely read and great to get first hand accounts as those who serviced the area in WW2 are very few now. There are a couple of MOD reports and plans that identified chemical munitions prepared at locations east of rearsby and queniborough, off the beaten track, perhaps that may tally with the basic cleanup during decommissioning the area. There were extensive huts and brick buildings across the whole site shown in the areal photos.
Regarding permission to enter the mound, why did the local council need to contact the MOD, council meeting records will have these points in their minutes. Does the MOD still have jurisdiction over the site, surely that has been handed over a long time ago?
Thank you

 

[mingerocket]

I don't know a great deal about the production of munitions but if it's similar to most chemical production processes then heating would have been involved. Heat would have almost certainly be distributed around the site in the form of steam. Steam boilers get through a good amount of water and any process relying on heat usually has a cooling process which would also rely on water. With the nature of the stuff being produced there would be a level of fire protection around the place (sprinkler/deluge systems/fire hydrants)
Chemical sites are usually built at locations with abundant water for these reasons.
Im only sharing what I've discovered even though it may not fit in with the urban myths/stories surrounding the place.
I think it's already been mentioned in the thread but looking at some of the borehole records around the area water was struck at as little as 2.8m depth. Not ideal ground to build tunnels in.
That's my ten pence worth.

 

[roget]

I don't know a great deal about the production of munitions but if it's similar to most chemical production processes then heating would have been involved. Heat would have almost certainly be distributed around the site in the form of steam. Steam boilers get through a good amount of water and any process relying on heat usually has a cooling process which would also rely on water. With the nature of the stuff being produced there would be a level of fire protection around the place (sprinkler/deluge systems/fire hydrants)
Chemical sites are usually built at locations with abundant water for these reasons.
Im only sharing what I've discovered even though it may not fit in with the urban myths/stories surrounding the place.
I think it's already been mentioned in the thread but looking at some of the borehole records around the area water was struck at as little as 2.8m depth. Not ideal ground to build tunnels in.
That's my ten pence worth.

We lived at the end of huntsman’s Dale next to the mound when the place was open, the playing fields today were spoil tipa for lorries and resembled the Somme, hehe. We had a small stream running 1m beneath the house towards the playing fields, I discovered in 1970 when creating an underground cat park for my toy cars.. it wasnr appreciated by the
neighbour when his rose bushes started to
fall through kids eh!

 

[Benjy41]

I am no expert and have never visited this site. I would love to believe in the tunnel theory but fear the truth may be interesting but not such a mystery. Large sites like Queniborough have extensive surface water drainage systems. I have researched just such a drainage system on an airfield. Large sites attract large volumes of water in heavy rain so the drainage system can comprise some really very large culverts. I have seen them over 2 metres high and roughly square in section. They look like tunnels but are actually square section culverts. If you plan on going to look for these please remember to take a spirit level with you. If they have a "fall" on them they are likely to be drains. Tunnels tend to be level with drainage grids in the floor to drain away seepage. It would be great to learn what you find.

 

[nasher]

Finally you have made clear that Nasher removed details from Wikipedia about EG and the army depot and tunnels. Given that this person has no evidence counter to the claim that the tunnels exist and doesn't own or manage wikipedia.. then that information should not have been removed, not least because it provides the necessary links to people who have in their own time and expense to investigate properly the factual details. I lived in Huntsmans Dale and played inside the Mound and explored small tunnels that were in the early 70's still exposed. My parents also attended the Parish Council meetings where Councilors reported entering the tunnels and verifying that the electricity was still in operation. The investigations are still in progress. At some point we are going to be calling upon people to make available the documents they hold (and can keep) to help piece the jigsaw of information that remains. Rather than pour doubt and sew confusion, either make yourself available to help or step back and use your time and energy in another positive direction.

Hello roget, do not make personal accusations that are untrue. i did not remove any info about the army depot (the edit history should be there). In the infancy of wiki, EG had a single simple paragraph as an entry with no mention of it. Since i lived there from 1968-1992 and played in the munitions bunkers, the railway siding and many other not yet demolished places as a child whilst the village was being built, i knew there was more to it's history than that. i added additional info from a FOI request that i got from documents regarding the depot from the MOD. They gave me everything they had (you may not believe this), and my additions to the wiki entry were simply a recapping of that info, from it being built to being decommissioned and sold to Jelson (interestingly even they had no maps of the site). The only thing i removed was the frankly juvenile entry about tunnels that read like an episode of Ancient Aliens. There's a way to add that info in a sensible and grown up way, without it embarrassing the village. It's possible that by 1968 any tunnels were already filled in as the village had a high population of young families with kids, so anything that happened prior to 1968 i would have no knowledge of and i bow to other residents on that. All i can say, and i am repeating myself here, i never met a single person in the 24 years of living in the village who had been underground in any open tunnels, seen a map of them at wreake valley school, or had any knowledge of info related to the old munitions works other than stuff i've mentioned above. The only things open in 1968 were the bunkers, the railway station (it was fenced off but we could get in easily) and near the railway line where the scout hut is were some manhole entrances that you could climb down a few feet into but were already filled with rubble (to keep us kids getting stuck). There were a few of these dotted over the parts of the village that hadn't yet been developed (the village was built in 3 phases) but you could only get down 5 or so feet. Later they were filled with more rubble to stop people falling into them, but they are still there. there is still the remnants of an old road there that presumably allowed trucks to pull up and load and unload contents nea rthe scout hut. I like Occams Razor, and it seems strange to me that having lived there for so long i never heard of the 'tunnels' until the internet age when gossip traveled at near light speed. To me it is things we knew existed like the bunkers, like small openings that went nowhere and were filled in etc being exaggerated for effect after the fact, read into that what you will. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. My mind is open to new information, but none has been forthcoming for how many years now, 60+??

 

[Benjy41]

Lovely read and great to get first hand accounts as those who serviced the area in WW2 are very few now. There are a couple of MOD reports and plans that identified chemical munitions prepared at locations east of rearsby and queniborough, off the beaten track, perhaps that may tally with the basic cleanup during decommissioning the area. There were extensive huts and brick buildings across the whole site shown in the areal photos.
Regarding permission to enter the mound, why did the local council need to contact the MOD, council meeting records will have these points in their minutes. Does the MOD still have jurisdiction over the site, surely that has been handed over a long time ago?
Thank you

Asking for permission from the MOD suggests that the MOD retained ownership of the mounds when the site was sold. It is possible that the developer did not want the liability of maintaining and securing the underground space, so asked to have the mound deleted from the sale. I don't know for sure, but it seems plausible.

 

[Seanbaker666]

There's is 100 percent .now family does not house 44 that backs onto train line has Hatch.previous home owner bought land off council.and extended garden and found concrete manhole cover..very heavy.was wyched up and a ladder exposed to old railway .one side track other big steal door with skull and cross bones sign on .this ladder that let to it went very deep. .they had council out and they said they don't no what it was its not on there maps and to seal it over.it now sits underneath a sundile in the garden. garden.it panicked them that much they covered it over.the interesting thing is . Spoke to a ground worker bout 10 years working digging footings they came across some similar s hole under a concrete slap that was very deep was covered over as did mot no what to do.there was over foxglove way.i remember on the thread someone said there used be a hatch down on the railway but its been filled in .my familys garden was extended and this would match that evidence.as this was more than likely the bit then purchase and ur a fence up.

 

[kevbleicester]

Lovely read and great to get first hand accounts as those who serviced the area in WW2 are very few now. There are a couple of MOD reports and plans that identified chemical munitions prepared at locations east of rearsby and queniborough, off the beaten track, perhaps that may tally with the basic cleanup during decommissioning the area. There were extensive huts and brick buildings across the whole site shown in the areal photos.
Regarding permission to enter the mound, why did the local council need to contact the MOD, council meeting records will have these points in their minutes. Does the MOD still have jurisdiction over the site, surely that has been handed over a long time ago?
Thank you

I was taking pics once around the mound, and a woman appeared from the local council? All holes are often checked as they collapse etc. Local records office might help. The mound openings collapse now and then and animals get in and out. Lots of stories about the railway along the side to.

 

[Bingo454]

OK so I've joined to give you guys the knowledge/ story that told to me a few years ago. I've lived on East Goscote and live not too far away. I was once talking to a structural engineer that was one of Jelsons engineer when they purchased the site from the MOD. When I told him where I lived his reply was " WOW! you're brave". He then went on to tell me about how he had been along the old train line that went underneath East Goscote, and that he wouldn't live anywhere near the place due the fact of what he saw when he was down there.