Tunnels Under England

Down the rabbit hole we go. In it hides the terrible truth of our past. Sat 29 May 2021

Hidden tunnel entrance triggered a search for Taunton's tunnels. Source

Somerset:

North Walsham, Norfolk:

Source: Ep21: Tales of Tunnels- North Walsham Original source

Norwich, Norfolk:

Source: The Undercrofts of Norwich Original source

Ramsgate, Kent:

Ramsgate's tunnels. Source: ANCIENT UNDERWORLD

Newark, Nottinghamshire:

Source: The Secret Tunnels Under Newark

Source: Going Underground .. Mediaeval Tunnels under Newark Town Centre

A good roundup of Newark tunnel claims up to 2013.

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire:

Source: The mysterious cave network under Nottingham | ITV News

East Sussex:

Source: At Hastings St Clement's Smugglers Adventure Cave in East Sussex

Lancashire:

Source: Oldhams secret tunnels including the death tunnel and victorian funeral parlour Sarah's UK graveyard

Cardiff, Wales:

Cardiff tunnel Source

Carmarthen, Wales:

Truth Lurking Underneath Welsh Town

Who built the tunnels?

From Diary of Abraham de la Pryme, p138 in 1695:

it being common with the Romans, and no nations else, to make passages under ground from their forts and camps to other places, to get aid and provisions into them the more secretly and safely in time of need.

Or maybe Romans and their opponents.

From Horse shoes and horse shoeing: their origin, history, uses, and abuses, George Fleming, 1869, Chapter III, footnote 38, describing the seige of Alise-Sainte-Reine, Côte d'Or:

The Gauls were unable to force his (Caesar's) lines at any point, and Vercingetorix, reduced to extremity by hunger, was compelled to surrender, without having carried into execution his design of murdering all the people in the town who were unfit for battle.

Ie: murdering and eating the non-soldiers among the beseiged town's 80,000.

What 'provisions'?

Orthodox religious allegory says child-butchery was a response to Roman siege:

Hungry Mary butchers her son. Source: Mary of Bethezuba eating her own child, Jef Demolder. Image source: Gospel book of Otto III

From Mary of Bethezuba eating her own child, quoting Flavius Josephus:

she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.

And in England:

Remains of a halved baby found at Jay's Close, Basingstoke, England. Source: Bodies, Bones, Objects and Stones

From Bodies, Bones, Objects and Stones:

The infant was associated with a number of saucepan sherds and fine flint saucepan type fabric vessels, along with an unspecified amount of animal bone

From ‘Are there tunnels under Grantham?’ asks Civic Society’s Ruth Crook. Of course not, she says. They are just cellars. And:

There are also meat hooks in the roof.

There was also a vaulted basement in a long-since demolished building on Market Place near Butcher’s Row.

From The Tunnels Under Gainsborough:

I'd say that unless someone with first hand knowledge wants to reveal what they know it will remain a mystery and folklore to some. I have met a few people who do know about the tunnels, and what I understand of these people is that they don't reveal what they know for a very good reason known only to them

Food for thought eh'!

And:

As for the Baltic Mill (in Gainsborough), I have also heard tempting "stuff" about there. I mean, there is only so much information you can state on here as it is an open forum after all and anyone can read what we are saying. That's where it can get a little bit.... shall we say, sticky!!

How was glue made in the past?

Footnote in original says: Alkborough. There is a plan of the camp here in Stukely. ↩
Stukeley has a plan of a similar camp about a mile north of uphill Lincoln. It is centred on what is now St Nicholas church. Its north-eastern corner can still be found at the corner of Newport cemetery. Coincidentally, that corner is now Newport Cemetery's children's memorial garden. ↩

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