Report - Victoria Tunnel - Newcastle - 25-05-07

[TheP]

Credit goes to Docfunk & The Loon for scouting and arranging the explore, cheers guys

Also, credit is due to the lad who tried to arrange plans for the tunnel, although they weren't ready in time (through no fault of your own), I'm sure everyone appreciates the effort in to the research, and who knows, it might aid in further exploration..?

So the big mystery visit was the Victoria Tunnel, here's a little background...

The Victoria Tunnel was completed on the 8th January 1842 and was officially opened on the 7th April 1842 by the Mayor. It is almost two miles in length from Spital Tongues Colliery to staithes on the Tyne near Glasshouse Bridge at foot of Tyne Street. It was closed Jan 1860.

In 1939 it was converted to an air-raid shelter at a cost of £37,000 - the seating capacity was 9,000. The walls were whitewashed and a Tarmac floor laid, electric lighting, bunks, seating and chemical toilets were installed. Overlapping pairs of thick concrete walls spaced about a yard apart were built to give protection against blast in case a bomb should pentrate into the tunnel or an entrance. These were located near the entrances and at intervals along the tunnel.

now time for some pics, I must apologise in advance, I'm not a photography expert, I'm still learning and photographing whilst in complete darkness is something which I am not familular with

here goes:

the first thing which stood out were these roots coming down from the ceiling, sometimes from ceiling to floor, which gave an eerily feel to the tunnels as we headed further down.

this next shot was looking back up towards the entrance we used, speaks for itself really..

these next two shots were of the blast sheilds, there were quite a few of these dotted along the tunnel, as mentioned above. The 2nd shot has a ghost image of a fellow UE as I was beginning to experiment with long exposures at this point.

The next shot shows how pretty much 3/4 of the tunnel looks like, we observed measures to detect movement of the bricks in the form of a small glass plate fixed to two adjacent bricks, luckily though, none were broken.

Out of a seating capacity of 9,000 these were only only solid evidence of seating down here, all though this section of tunnel we observed the fixings on the floor, but these were the only remains left of seating.

..Some wheels, not sure what they were used for..

..a blocked off section of tunnel, may have to get some spades down here depending on what the plans show

and by this time I'm experimenting a bit more, turned the flash off and used torchlight to illuminate these scenes. In the 2nd shot, the light at the end of the tunnel is fellow UE'ers.

the next shot was pretty much as far as we could go in our current direction, bit of a rest gave me an oppertunity to try out long exposure's of our fellow UE'ers heading back.

..heading back back in the opposite directions now, past our entry point and exploring the other direction.. drat, another bricked off entrance...

the following shot is where things got a bit mucky, we believe the tunnel was re-enforced at some point in time due to the local metro tunnels being so close, to get to this point we all had to get our feet wet as just before this tunnel section it was a little flooded, fortunately though the water wasn't as bad as what was about to come.. further down this passage we encountered sanitary items

..at the end of that section it was bricked up, so we headed back the the entry point for a group photo before exiting..

..and that was our explore wrapped up.

I'd like to take the oppertunity to thank everyone envolved for making this trip possible, it was nice to get out and explore our past. Cheers

If anyone who attended wants any unedited pics, drop me a pm Let's see some of your pics too

 

[Vivo]

Lol, I knew someone would post this up before the morning. You missed the next bit though. We decided on a second explore and headed up to St Mary's Asylum in Stanington.

Anyway, I'll pop some pics up too. Oh btw, could you PM me the group photo un-pixelated please.

BTW: Love the photos lit only by torch light, they look so much more natural. Would you be able to send me a full-size copy of the second one with the wheel where everyone was coming round the corner?

Right, apoligies for quality, taken off a compact camera not a fancy SLR. The P covered almost everything so I'll just show random shots of the crew.

Oh look! Stalagmites!

I wonder who came down here?

Saxofillis (left) and The P (right)

Docfunk at the Spital Tongues entrance

Brickman conviently having a camera in his face to hide it

After something like 1 1/2 of walking it was time for a well-deserved break. (Saxofillis left, Brickman right)

The definite highlight of the evening was Docfunk's EXTREMELY close shave with the bacon. A police car came down the street where we were just as he was climbing an 8ft fence. Luckily, the pigs looked at the 8 suspicious people at the bus stop across the road with tripods, rucksacks and walking boots (us) and he had time to get over before they looked in his direction.

It was also pretty funny when I got my boots stuck in the sewage near the end. That was 100% sick.

Anyway, look out for everyone else's photos. There are some good ones from St Mary's too. We were there until about 5.45 this morning. Considering the explore technically started at 7.30 that is some trip. Now, I better catch 40 winks before work.

 

[the loon]

What can I say...
Firstly thanks to all who came along and made it an excelent night.
Intresting explores and great company.
As Vivo's said how the night didnt get called off before it all began with the police coming around the corner just as docfunk was jumping the fence will no doubt be a story that will go down in legend for all who saw it(and you had to see it to beleve it )

Had a great time and would loved to have got in more but was about fit to drop after we did st. Marry's...was going to sudjest a run up to another sight near by where me and Kona got caught by security not very long ago as we where about to make an entry.

got a few pics from victoria tunnel but I'll keep it to a minimum ...


first attempt at light painting

Doc"the man they couldnt catch"funk

inspecting the blast wall

blast wall graffiti

little more playing with the camera.

also resulted in these

then it was on to st marry's

Little bit of a sneaky entry but well worth it

Vivo goes to check out the loft

Brickman just hanging around

still got loads mjore...im me if you want them.

Reet well as the coffee and red bull are wear ing off I'm going for a couple of hours kip before I fall asleep at the PC.

My only questions now are
When are we going again and who wants to organise the next one

 

[Brick_Man]

that little tunnel WAS a killer.

have a feeling it put a crimp on jordies day aswell, certainly did on my back, but made the best of it I could.

finally got rid of that acrid'ness on the back of me throat from the tunnel, took some sambuca to do it, but I feel MUCH better now for it


so remember kiddies, the two most important fluids in life are..

coca cola, for when you've been playing around in nasty river water, drink plenty, and its so bad for you that it'll kill the good & bad bacteria in your stomach and you'll be fine.

sambuca, for bad throats, and chesty coughs, best served FLAMMING:

enough banter, MORE PHOTOS REQUIRED....

LADEEZ this way nearly brought one of my very own, but she wasn't up for a *possible* all nighter

a bracket that the electric lighting conduit would have ran down.

alien snot!!!

the cause of the snot

bit worrying! they're NOT mean't to be broken like this!

Bench Dust, literally.

reminds me of Sour milk gyll in the lake district (linkage to follow).

obviously plenty of oxygen down here. So it must be something else giving me a headache and making me feel unbalanced :

what I would do to be able to go back in time and put a lantern at the OTHER end of shot, looked fine on the little screen, but craptack here :freak

the ghost shots didn't work guys, so put this one up