History - The Corsham Tunnels
History – Corsham Tunnels
• What is the origin of the tunnels that run under Corsham and Neston (the village I live in)?
• How has the use of the tunnels changed overtime?
• How well known are the tunnels?
The Corsham Tunnels
A brief overview
The Corsham tunnels are a network of concealed passageways located deep underground in the small town of Corsham. Over the years the tunnels have been used for several different purposes. At first the tunnels were a series of quarries but later they were connected and adapted to serve storage uses required by the military. Later in the twentieth century the tunnels were adapted again to act as a safe house for the government in the event of a nuclear war.
What is the origin of the tunnels and how have they developed?
The tunnels that run under both Neston and Corsham date back to 1840 when they began life as a quarry, but over time they have undergone major development, at one stage housing a fully developed underground city.
Despite the fact that the quarry was around in the 1840s, to provide bath stone to help the development of the historic city of Bath, the tunnels themselves were formed some years later under the control of the MOD. So it was the early nineteen hundreds before the tunnels first appeared in their current form.
Although the MOD has been responsible for most of the developments that occurred to the tunnels during their history, other local developments also had a big impact, particularly the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunel was a famous engineer who built the Box Tunnel, which opened in 1841 after fourteen years of construction. This was an important development which helped realise the industrial potential of the area. The improved railway links helped the quarry develop as it allowed the stone that the quarry produced to be transported around the country quickly and easily.
The opening of Box Tunnel therefore started the ‘Golden Age’ of
• What is the origin of the tunnels that run under Corsham and Neston (the village I live in)?
• How has the use of the tunnels changed overtime?
• How well known are the tunnels?
The Corsham Tunnels
A brief overview
The Corsham tunnels are a network of concealed passageways located deep underground in the small town of Corsham. Over the years the tunnels have been used for several different purposes. At first the tunnels were a series of quarries but later they were connected and adapted to serve storage uses required by the military. Later in the twentieth century the tunnels were adapted again to act as a safe house for the government in the event of a nuclear war.
What is the origin of the tunnels and how have they developed?
The tunnels that run under both Neston and Corsham date back to 1840 when they began life as a quarry, but over time they have undergone major development, at one stage housing a fully developed underground city.
Despite the fact that the quarry was around in the 1840s, to provide bath stone to help the development of the historic city of Bath, the tunnels themselves were formed some years later under the control of the MOD. So it was the early nineteen hundreds before the tunnels first appeared in their current form.
Although the MOD has been responsible for most of the developments that occurred to the tunnels during their history, other local developments also had a big impact, particularly the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunel was a famous engineer who built the Box Tunnel, which opened in 1841 after fourteen years of construction. This was an important development which helped realise the industrial potential of the area. The improved railway links helped the quarry develop as it allowed the stone that the quarry produced to be transported around the country quickly and easily.
The opening of Box Tunnel therefore started the ‘Golden Age’ of