Be Quick Or You Will Miss It!

the 'it' being a tunnel that was hailed as an eighth wonder of the world and a triumph of Victorian engineering, being quick is because it is only open for today and tomorrow and a Fancy Fair originally held in 1852 below the river will be recreated at the nearby Brunel Museum, it was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard, and was the first known to have been built beneath a navigable river, the Thames, the tunnel, which runs from Wapping to Rotherhithe at a depth of 75ft below the river's surface, quickly became a thriving shopping arcade and entertainment centre, above is a picture of as it is now,

but it was not without it's problems whilst being built, many workers, including Brunel, became ill because of the filthy water seeping through from the river above, the sewage from the river gave off methane gas which was ignited by the miner's oil lamps, causing fires underground, when the resident engineer William Armstrong fell ill in April 1826 from working underground Marc's son Isambard Kingdom Brunel took over at the age of 20,

some of the disasters included a tunnel flood on 18 May 1827 after only 549 feet had been dug, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had to lower a diving bell from a boat to repair the hole at the bottom of the river, throwing bags filled with clay into the breach in the tunnel's roof, the tunnel flooded again the following year, on 12 January 1828, when six men died and Isambard himself narrowly escaped drowning, there were further floods, methane leaks and fires before the tunnelling was finally completed in 1841 and opened to the public, once lighting roadways and spiral staircases had been installed, on March 25 1843,

if you are interested in visiting The Brunel Museum tours will take in the grand entrance hall and the 1867 arch at the Rotherhithe entrance, it is now an International Landmark Site, one of six in Britain, but is usually closed to the public, if we were in the UK we would be there today, I find this sort of thing so interesting.