Underneath the arches....

[pipme]

Have you witnessed the beautiful facade to Box hill tunnel, Wilts ? Another of Isambard's gems on main rail track to the smoke.
Plainly visible from A4 on the Chippenham side of Box village ... Around two miles long ... In 1841 looked like this

Tis within a limestone hill, which also housed an underground quarry .... The whole thing was taken over by the Govn .... The opposite end of the tunnel looked like this (below) in 1948..... Ooooer a bit secretive, this little side entrance to the 'quarry', beside the main line, far from prying eyes !

Read about our amazing underground resource here Link

 

[AdamW]

I'm looking at some of the "underground cities" on his website and WOW! Little did they know at the time how useful these skills would be for the Cold War era, building nuclear bunkers.

Amazing engineering too, not just the civil engineering but also the plumbing, electrics and air conditioning systems they built.

 

[pipme]

Whole factories producing the means to wage war were busy beneath the ground in those Wilts nether regions...
Amazing really, the engineering involved .. most of all the determination to get the job done and see it through without jelly bellied cancellation !! Seems to take the odd war to galvanise us into resolute action ....

 

[matz]

I came across this website a while ago- certainly makes interesting reading. Are any of these places accessible by the public - guided and prearranged or other wise?

 

[pipme]

Don't know about access, but I bet the site author does... didn't notice if he posted e-mail or not.
P