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Question - East Goscote / Leicestershire / Tunnel System?

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Goldie87

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Seems to be a lot of people claiming to of played in them in the 70s if they are.
I believe as @Punk sais they have been well & truly sealed hence no one has been in them for 50yrs, but who knows with the right research & a lot of effort they may one day get reopened!

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.
 
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Scoobysrt

Teim scoobs
28DL Full Member
I'm on the fence and don't know either way but these I didn't see it so it didn't happen arguments don't seem very productive in finding the actual truth out.
 

Goldie87

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I'm on the fence and don't know either way but these I didn't see it so it didn't happen arguments don't seem very productive in finding the actual truth out.

It’s not an argument, it’a facts and common sense. What isn’t productive is eight pages of nonsense, people making stories up or passing on made up stories, miss identifying stuff, and going round in circles. So many people that claim to own or have seen maps and plans, who know possible entrances, or who claim to have been in tunnels. Despite all of that, no one can find anything and no one has any photos or evidence whatsoever, funny that. The fact is that it was a ROF and it’s no great secret what was there, no reason for any huge tunnel network to exist.
 

Scoobysrt

Teim scoobs
28DL Full Member
It’s not an argument, it’a facts and common sense. What isn’t productive is eight pages of nonsense, people making stories up or passing on made up stories, miss identifying stuff, and going round in circles. So many people that claim to own or have seen maps and plans, who know possible entrances, or who claim to have been in tunnels. Despite all of that, no one can find anything and no one has any photos or evidence whatsoever, funny that. The fact is that it was a ROF and it’s no great secret what was there, no reason for any huge tunnel network to exist.

Why do you keep posting?
You've obviously no interest and believe nothing's there, why don't you find somthing else to do and let those that want to discuss this do so in peace?

Whatever you're saying has less weight to it than the people saying theyve been down them. Im going to believe the eye witness accounts i think rather than grumbles with no back up evidence.
 

Goldie87

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Why do you keep posting?
You've obviously no interest and believe nothing's there, why don't you find somthing else to do and let those that want to discuss this do so in peace?

Whatever you're saying has less weight to it than the people saying theyve been down them. Im going to believe the eye witness accounts i think rather than grumbles with no back up evidence.

Whenever I see bullshit I’ll call it out. I’m interested in the real history of the site, not made up fairytales. So you are saying the fact the history of the site is well known and documented, it’s known what was there, my grandad worked for the developer and never said anything unusual was ever found during clearance and redevelopment, that’s not evidence. But a few fairytale stories of tunnels with nothing to back them up are evidence? Makes sense
 

Scoobysrt

Teim scoobs
28DL Full Member
I'm saying your word of your grandads word is as good or bad as the word of people who say they've been in there.

I posted on this thread asking how the lidar pictures were acquired but I then found a website, there wasn't any new tunnel posts for you to reply to.
I think we all know your opinion now there's really no need to keep posting it, let the people having fun looking have their fun.
 
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SteT6

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I’ve lived in the village for 5 years and have walked my dogs all over looking for evidence of an entrance to tunnels. If there are any I’m guessing they are in someone’s gardens or in the covered bunkers on the mound. Maybe there used to be tunnels originally but were they demolished during the building of the village??
 

Benjy41

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
There may be a simple explanation here.

1) When the councillors said they'd been in the tunnels, did they mean the mounded over magazines that look like tunnels?

2) A lot of ROF and similar sites have big drainage tunnels, or utilities tunnels just below the surface. Are these the tunnels to which local people have accessed as children.

Just asking, as I know from at least two other sites where rumour has become fact, or fact has become distorted in the telling. So many stories about Burlington (look it up) and Greenham Common, where the evidence does not support the "local history". I did some research on a tunnel associated with an abandoned military airfield, where the tunnel proved to be a culvert made up from 6ftx6ft square sections, installed to manage rainwater run-off from huge areas of concrete.

If the area has a low water table it is possible drainage was necessary, which might explain tunnels (culverts) and the known presence of pumping stations.
 

Roundakela

28DL Member
28DL Member
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!
 

Benjy41

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Scoobysrt: Please don't stop looking!! You may find tunnels or culverts and solve the mystery once and for all.

However it is worth noting that without proper evidence so many of these type of stories are just that. It starts with a drain or a culvert, and by the third time of telling has become a nuclear facility. Not always, but often. The myth of the strategic reserve ran and ran for years and there are still people who believe it exists, with no hard evidence.

The bunker at Burlington (look it up ) was reported to have a nuclear power station underground. The rumour started because someone saw the radiation sign ( triangle containing a dot and three segments ) on the secure side of the perimeter security. Now I know that sign exists because I have seen it. However it is not nuclear radiation but radiation from the cabling and associated radio transmission equipment. It is definitely NOT nuclear but it is easy to see how someone might have read it that way. Also there is reported to be a willys jeep factory here, which was a spoof story which is believed by those who want it to be true.

I research WW2 bomber crews. So often a story starts "My grandad was a spitfire pilot", and when I research I find he was a flight engineer on a Halifax. Both are important, but the inconsistency is just that, so beware.

Geiger counter: This is possibly an over enthusiastic site supervisor ensuring checks are made, knowing that the luminous paint used in a lot of instrumentation, dials, gauges and the like IS radioactive and does give positive readings on a Geiger counter. Where instrumentation and the like has been scrapped, eg: maintenance units and a/c scrappage locations, background radiation counts can be expected to be above the norm. This ROF Queniborough would have had instrumentation on site to manage the processes.

On other ROF sites the large mounded sites cover substantial concrete magazines used to store finished product prior to dispatch. There are similar magazines at ROF Swynnerton.

Queniborough phase one was built by Holloway Brothers and finished in 1940. It filled shells, bombs, and grenades,

Queniborough phase two , built buy Rendel Palmer and Tritton, and completed in the early part of 1942. It was smaller than previous ROF factories, with a work force of approx 1000. managed by Unilevers, it manufactured fuzes and detonators.
 

wallydog

28DL Member
28DL Member
Just throwing in my 2 cents worth to what appears to be a dead or dying thread. I lived at East Goscote from 1964 to around 1972, I believe our family were the 5th or 6th family to move into the new development, we lived 36 Ploughmans Lea. At the time demolition of the munitions factories was in full swing, sand was being extracted from pits towards the railway and Jelsons were pushing full steam ahead with the new housing construction. For a child of 7 it was paradise. I clearly remember the two huge bunkers (now referred to as 'mounds' but we called them the Bat Caves), they were full of bats (duh) and had a rail platform (or loading platform) inside them, the roof was supported by concrete pillars (maybe 20 or 30 of them?) and there were ventilations shafts around the edges which we could climb by push feet against one wall and back against the other. We used to go in there and light huge fires which would smoke the place out. Both of these bunkers were open at the time, we played in both of them. All over the East Goscote site were concrete buildings separated by earth mounds, we understood these were to contain the blast in case one of the munitions building blew up. These buildings were demolished over a period of time, and the mounds dug away, but we explored pretty well all of them finding all sorts of things, old tools, benches, old desks with stuff in. Over towards Broome Lane we found a fenced off area and some buildings which seemed to be related to aircraft, inside one of them we found some glass vials, about the size of an egg, which contained acid, they'd fizz and burn stuff when we threw them, great hand grenades for children... one of the buildings contained the fuselage of a small airplane. Towards the railway, about opposite The Warren, there were some undergound buildings which ran along side the tracks and very close to them, nothing very big, maybe the size of the average living room, they were long and narrow and had stairs at either end. From memory there were two or three of these. I do remember another underground tank, this was around 100m outside the entrance to the Bat Caves (the mound), it seemed to have been an old fuel tank as it was oval shaped and sat on a tilt, the far end was full water and newts. My guess is it was around 6m long, 3m wide and tall enough for child to stand up In, the entrance was just a hole in the ground, almost like the tank has rusted through in one area and the ground above it fell in creating an entrance. The sand pits were pretty big and would flood with water, we'd build polythene boats using stuff 'borrowed' the building site. One pit had an island, it must have been one particularly strong concrete building which for some reason couldn't be demolished so was dug around creating an island when the floods came, it disappeared eventually but I can't remember how or when. So far as a tunnel network is concerned I have no recollection of this, we saw no evidence of any entrances and none of the other children we played with over the years mentioned this. We were pretty adventurous and got into pretty well everything so I think we'd have come across or heard about them if there was anything. While I'd like to thing that a tunnel network does exist there is nothing I can remember to back this up. And a belated 'thank you' to the many builders whose lemonade bottles we liberated for the sixpence refund on the bottle, and apologies for flattening out the piles of building sand and filling them with water to skate on when they froze.
 

kevbleicester

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Just throwing in my 2 cents worth to what appears to be a dead or dying thread. I lived at East Goscote from 1964 to around 1972, I believe our family were the 5th or 6th family to move into the new development, we lived 36 Ploughmans Lea. At the time demolition of the munitions factories was in full swing, sand was being extracted from pits towards the railway and Jelsons were pushing full steam ahead with the new housing construction. For a child of 7 it was paradise. I clearly remember the two huge bunkers (now referred to as 'mounds' but we called them the Bat Caves), they were full of bats (duh) and had a rail platform (or loading platform) inside them, the roof was supported by concrete pillars (maybe 20 or 30 of them?) and there were ventilations shafts around the edges which we could climb by push feet against one wall and back against the other. We used to go in there and light huge fires which would smoke the place out. Both of these bunkers were open at the time, we played in both of them. All over the East Goscote site were concrete buildings separated by earth mounds, we understood these were to contain the blast in case one of the munitions building blew up. These buildings were demolished over a period of time, and the mounds dug away, but we explored pretty well all of them finding all sorts of things, old tools, benches, old desks with stuff in. Over towards Broome Lane we found a fenced off area and some buildings which seemed to be related to aircraft, inside one of them we found some glass vials, about the size of an egg, which contained acid, they'd fizz and burn stuff when we threw them, great hand grenades for children... one of the buildings contained the fuselage of a small airplane. Towards the railway, about opposite The Warren, there were some undergound buildings which ran along side the tracks and very close to them, nothing very big, maybe the size of the average living room, they were long and narrow and had stairs at either end. From memory there were two or three of these. I do remember another underground tank, this was around 100m outside the entrance to the Bat Caves (the mound), it seemed to have been an old fuel tank as it was oval shaped and sat on a tilt, the far end was full water and newts. My guess is it was around 6m long, 3m wide and tall enough for child to stand up In, the entrance was just a hole in the ground, almost like the tank has rusted through in one area and the ground above it fell in creating an entrance. The sand pits were pretty big and would flood with water, we'd build polythene boats using stuff 'borrowed' the building site. One pit had an island, it must have been one particularly strong concrete building which for some reason couldn't be demolished so was dug around creating an island when the floods came, it disappeared eventually but I can't remember how or when. So far as a tunnel network is concerned I have no recollection of this, we saw no evidence of any entrances and none of the other children we played with over the years mentioned this. We were pretty adventurous and got into pretty well everything so I think we'd have come across or heard about them if there was anything. While I'd like to thing that a tunnel network does exist there is nothing I can remember to back this up. And a belated 'thank you' to the many builders whose lemonade bottles we liberated for the sixpence refund on the bottle, and apologies for flattening out the piles of building sand and filling them with water to skate on when they froze.
Wow fantastic information. What would be great if you could do some basic drawings for us to imagine what it was like. Regards Kevin.
 

wallydog

28DL Member
28DL Member
Wow fantastic information. What would be great if you could do some basic drawings for us to imagine what it was like. Regards Kevin.
There are a heap of family slides from that era, my brother has them but so I haven't been successful in getting any copies. I'll be in the UK when covid is over and will try again then. Also I've remembered why the 'island' was left intact for a while, it was because there was a concrete bunker on it, the sort of thing you'd see in a defensive position, really thick walls and narrow slots for windows, presumably to shoot through, it wasn't very big, I'd say around 8 x 8m. It was a great place for drinking elicit cider.. I guess they excavated around it and then eventually it was demolished/buried or blown up, or probably all three. Also, our ex East Goscote next door neighbour, who now lives in the States and is still in touch, has no recollection of a tunnel network. I really think it's just an urban myth.
 

roget

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
This link let's you zoom and move old and new maps side by side which is really useful. You can change the modern map to show maps, lidar, imagery etc.


848813
beyond awesome!!
 

roget

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Hi all, I've just read the thread and its great to see that the tunnels are a great interest to so many people. I've lived in the village for 27 years and have heard the rumours of this network of tunnels that people have claimed to have had excess to.

Are people still looking for the entrances or has the interest gone?

Still alive.. when covid restrictions allow moves will take place to explore further on the ground with tech team
 

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