UK • Ruin 🤬🤬🤬🤬 II: the hidden, forbidden tunnels of Dorchester

[wfgodot]

Not precisely "up to the minute" as the first header's datelined July; still fascinating for amateur historians (hi!), urban explorers, psychogeographers, and all & sundry. A good run-up to Hallowe'en, at any rate.

Judge Jeffreys' tunnel uncovered (Dorset Echo)

There may be tunnel ahead... another underground tunnel discovered in Dorchester (Dorset Echo)

Ancient Dorchester Tunnels, Dorset (The Urban Explorer)

After years of searching for possible ancient tunnels in Dorchester and finding dead end after dead end, local newspaper The Dorset Echo reported on two successive finds by Antelope Walk caretaker Terry McGrath within a week of each other.
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Rumours of tunnels under the Dorset county town have been widespread for decades. I had found several possible entrances, been under different shops in the main high street, and still had one left to explore when the Echo articles were published.
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Judge Jeffreys' Bloody Assizes (Wiki)

 

[wfgodot]

What lies beneath our country town: new links to Dorchester's past discovered underground (Dorset Echo)

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Councillor David Taylor said: “People can come to Dorchester and not realise they are walking upon ancient history.

“This stuff is not just 50 odd years old, it’s hundreds of years of history.”

 

[wfgodot]

This story greatly interests me as my first ancestor on these colonial shores was a result of transportation after having backed the losers in the Duke of Monmouth rebellion and subsequently having been booted from Blighty by Judge Jeffreys et al. during the Bloody Assizes. (Which was a damn lot less severe than many got as punishment.)

 

[wfgodot]

Another Dorset Echo piece (Dorchester was, btw, the model for Thomas Hardy's Wessex town of Casterbridge, Hardy having been born just east of the city in the hamlet of Higher Bockhampton) documenting the fascinating (sez I) discoveries:

Digging duo unearth Dorchester's forgotten tunnels

More than a few UK excavations here: secret passages, a.k.a. hidden passages or secret tunnels (Wiki)

And of course London's also a subterranean city. (Wiki)

London’s Top 10 Tunnels and Catacombs (Londonist.com)

And ghosts -- of course there are ghosts underground: Ghosts of the London Underground (unexplained-mysteries.com)

And then there's Brum....

Mystery of the secret tunnels beneath Birmingham revealed (Birmingham Mail)

And there are many, many more.

"Foo-goo"s, anyone? Fogou (Wiki)

Let's pop up to Scotland....

Tunnel Vision -- Exploring Glasgow's Underground

Edinburgh Vaults (Wiki)

 

[wfgodot]

A popular favorite:

Absurd space: the Williamson Tunnels, Liverpool

Liverpool's lost Williamson tunnels unearthed (BBC)

Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre

 

[wfgodot]

And also....

Forget the Cavern, for Liverpool's real underground try its secret tunnels (Guardian)

 

[wfgodot]

The Roman emperor Hadrian's Wall is, of course, in present-day Northumberland, so the discovered tunnels beneath his continental digs are fair game for a UK tunnel thread....

Hadrian's villa tunnels explored as cavers drop down into hidden city (Guardian)

Deep inside tunnels revealed under Hadrian's Roman villa (BBC, w/video)

Underground city and slave tunnels are discovered beneath Emperor Hadrian's Villa in Rome (Daily Mail)

 

[wfgodot]

Rivers forced underground? Here, from National Geographic:

River Walbrook, London

River Fleet, London

River Westbourne, London

River Sheaf, Sheffield

Bradford Beck River, Bradford

 

[wfgodot]

And a nearly contemporary dwelling place....

Wiltshire's Secret Underground City (BBC)

But back to secret tunnels....

Hidden East Anglia

Secret tunnels, and more....

Subterranea Britannica

Plus....

Going underground with Contrary Life

 

[wfgodot]

John Law grows persnickety....

Underground ghost station explorers spook the security services (Guardian)
• Legal battle over crackdown on friends found in disused Aldwych tube tunnel days before royal wedding

They entered through Russell Square station. For 10 minutes, the four of them sprinted along the tracks of the Piccadilly line towards a disused tunnel at Holborn. Their prize: a sight of one of the great trophies of London's urban exploration scene – the abandoned platforms of Aldwych tube station.

The expedition last year was supposed to be the second last stop in a tour of the capital's 18 "ghost" tube stations. Instead it has sparked a legal battle over the human rights of a community of photographers dedicated to visually documenting restricted areas across the world – and pointing out security loopholes.
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the rest at link above

And the Duke of Portland waxes wonderfully weird....

The eccentric duke and his underground tunnels (nottshistory.org.uk)

Aristocratic British Eccentrics (wizzley.com)

The Eccentricities of The 5th Duke of Portland (theoddmentemporium.tumblr.com)

 

[wfgodot]

[video=youtu;VMGQC05_nSE]http://youtu.be/VMGQC05_nSE[/video]

 

[wfgodot]

Unabashedly bumping these 35 links, full-knowing the Freudian import of tunnels (and particularly -- secret ones!)

 

[wfgodot]

Bumping this again; some great stuff here, if I do unabashedly say so myself.

Check out a few links.

 

[badhorsie]

ED and I often visit Judge Jeffreys tea rooms. There has been talk for years about various tunnels in Dorchester, indeed the tunnel runs beneath the tearooms to the courts. I did a tour of the old courtrooms and visited the cell where the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sent to, very atmospheric place.
I'm going to check some of your links.

BTW The JJ Tearooms are reputed to be haunted. A friend worked there and reported that the tearooms are at their noisiest after closing time. Sound like a roomful of people, when you enter it there's no one there

 

[wfgodot]

Speaking of Tolpuddle Martyrs, a link from your Wiki link:

Tolpuddle Martyrs courtroom to be centre-piece of new Dorset heritage centre (Western Gazette)

 

[badhorsie]

Lol, it takes someone in the US to tell me what is going on in my local area. Brilliant news, hope they don't tamper with it too much