Newcastles Longest Tunnel?!

[@Colt-hd5bn]

I have studied local history for many years and I find this young man absolutely brilliant with his interest

[@garethpayne6907]

Really interesting video. I subscribed to your channel as although I've only been to the Newcastle area once for work I found the city fascinating with history and architecture.

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks Gareth! Newcastle has a really interesting architectural history that’s often overlook and wanted to change than. Glad you enjoyed it

[@Gibboncore]

Interesting that you mention the Civic Centre having a possible entrance to the tunnel. It was long rumoured that the reason why there is such a big bend on the Metro line between Jesmond and the Haymarket is that had to go round the Cold War Regional Command and Control Centre which was built under the Civic Centre. In which case they might not have been so interested in access to the tunnel… Great videos, keep up the good work :)

[@kkrash]

No entrance from the civic centre. There was an entrance near St Thomas Church but no connection into the tunnel from the civic centre

[@michaelc6828]

Brilliant..Thank you Joedan

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks glad you liked it!

[@harryl9yearsago788]

We used to go inside at Byker/ Ouseburn entrance as kids

[@nelzapoppin]

The colliery was in the area bordered by Hunter's Road, Fountain Row, and Ancrum Street. The tunnel entrance was south west facing and situated roughly where the Hunter's Moor Convenience Store is at the north end of Belle Grove West. Info from Side By Side Georeferenced Maps site.

[@chondrompala6533]

Was brought up close to the Ouseburn in 60s, early 70s (went to Christchurch primary in Shieldfield 68 to 74(ish) - I have some stories to tell about that !) and had no idea of the existence of this tunnel. Jordan, you produce some great local historical stuff. Cheers.

[@stuartcrosbie8830]

I've been to town moor before but never knew the tunnel existed so need to look out for that next time im there

[@lornaburgess9762]

Jordan in my 69years I thought I knew all about Newcastle but you have really told history about the tunnel on the Toon Moor that I had never heard of. I knew about the Ouseburn -but not that.Thank You pet.😘

[@tigger4246]

Great information Jordan 👍🏻 your research is spot on. I think you would enjoy researching into the Ouseburn tunnel which was used as an air raid shelter during WW2. My grandparents used to use go into the tunnel during air raids. Also look at Pandon Dene which ran from the quayside up to the Haymarket and civic centre site. Thank you again for the great video.

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks mate! I recently did a walk along the pandon Dene, which is interesting as the Victoria tunnel follows a very similar route through the centre of haymarket etc.

[@tigger4246]

@@JordanReeve yeh the old Pandon Dene was apparently similar to Jesmond Dene in its day. Long gone since the railways in the 19th century. If you like your history and the history of Newcastle, have a look at Lambert’s leap, it was, I think part of Pandon Dene. There’s a story of a guy by the surname of Lambert who’s horse bolted over into the ravine in about 1750s to 90s, the horse fell to its death but Lambert survived by managing to get caught and hang on to a tree branch! I think it’s the very bottom of Osborne road where the TA and Mr Lynches are.

[@livingonthetyne]

I made a video recently on this tunnel

[@georgeedwardscott8161]

do you have any info links for the pandon dean?

[@livingonthetyne]

blog.twmuseums.org.uk/the-real-barras-bridge-and-newcastles-beautiful-lost-dean/

[@louisdale938]

Nice one keep👍 it going,

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks Louis!

[@Vince_uk]

First class video and again increased my own knowledge about Newcastle.

[@johnpike7444]

My mate worked in the market and he showed me a door which he said led to a load of cattacoombes under the city

[@137Rita]

Interesting, thank you. This inspires me to do a similar walk sometime.....

[@JordanReeve]

It’s an interesting walk to do, would definitely recommend Rita!

[@paulpmufc]

Back in the 90s, I went to the sea cadets in Blakelaw bunker (TS Nelson), a disused ww2 operations bunker. It had a tunnel leading direct to the civic centre and in the other direction to Kenton bunker. I actually believe Newcastle is riddled with random tunnels .

[@JordanReeve]

That’s super interesting! Thanks for sharing

[@ededgar6298]

I went in this in 1997 as a kid with my dad and his mate it has a man hole cover you can open when your in there and it opens on a road

[@smullen2000]

Very interesting Jordan. I do love hearing about the history of the north east.

[@JordanReeve]

Glad you enjoyed it mate!

[@leeharwood9624]

Iv head that about the civic center having a tunnel under it, its a very modern Fort looking building wi h the seahorses on the tower and the medieval touch lanterns along the entrance way

[@rutlepaul]

I don't know what the state of the tunnel is now but in the 1990s it stopped under Ingham Place Shieldfield. There was a mass of backfill that totally blocked the tunnel, no idea how far back the fill went.

[@BABYCHAOS26]

Very good video, I visited the Victoria Tunnel in 2017. It was really interesting.

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks mate!

[@ronrichardson3103]

I hope you weren't sick .

[@leeharwood9624]

Whoow the tunnels go all over the place, not really suprised there's tunnels everywhere under our feet, if you haven't seen what's under Manchester in the Stevenson tunnels 🤯🤯mind blowing theres literally a castle with massive banquiting halls, grand halls and wine cellers with 50ft high arched ceilings and passage ways leading everywhere, and they still haven't dug it all out yet thers still loads to dig out these are all over the place

[@JordanReeve]

Never heard about these tunnels under Manchester but definitely going to check them out now. Thanks!!

[@leeharwood9624]

@@JordanReeve it's ethier Manchester or Liverpool, the Stevenson tunnels they have a KZbin channel

[@leeharwood9624]

@@JordanReeve but if you want to see stuff that isn't open to the public there's urban explorers channels that go into some crazy old forts that are mind blowing

[@ravenna_bronze]

The Kenton Tunnel might be of interest to you :)

[@JordanReeve]

Hadn’t heard about this one till you said. But definitely looks an interesting one ! Thanks

[@marksweep1970]

Thumbs up.

[@andrewemery4272]

sort of, sort of

[@jonathanc7750]

Big fan of the channel. Would enjoy a video on the Byker Wall if that was of interest to you

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks Jonathan, I’m looking into doing a piece on this at some point

[@cannyscott]

Good video

[@JordanReeve]

Thanks mate!

[@jvanhee71]

The Victoria Tunnel fascinates me. But mainly because the official narrative just doesn’t ring true. Imagine building a tunnel two miles long underground just to run a 15’ bogey on a pulley system that can only run in one direction at a time. Just think of the cost of such a feat of engineering while only providing capacity for one bogey (about 3 tons) per trip and then haul the thing back empty. I’ve been most of the length of the tunnel and their are multiple entrances and the brickwork suggests it’s been there for hundreds of years - perhaps since medieval times. Much of old Newcastle is riddled with vaults and tunnels so in my opinion it served another purpose.

[@JordanReeve]

It is a strange one Jason, especially for how little time it operated as a tunnel to transport coal. The route also seems to follow the pandon Dene almost exactly for a portion of its journey through haymarket and Northumbria uni but I rarely see a mention of how these two run in relation to each other

[@kbay8504]

So as a tour guide for the tunnel for 10 years, just to answer your points The tunnel was designed by a gentleman called William Gillespie, it was initially proposed 1838 / 1839 to counter problems the leazes main colliery. The colliery could run its coal, line of sight down near to Elswick, however the colliers couldn't get that far up the Tyne so from a financial point of view it cost money for a pony and trap, money for a keel and keelman etc, a lot of the transportation work was outsourced therefore causing additional overheads. From an environmental point of view it was causing pollution in the centre, which like now was a place of trade. From a functional point of view it took too long to transport considering moving the loads of coal over several traps and keels. The land was leased and a tale as old as time, the landlords were getting rich while the colliery was hemorrhaging money. They proposed a railway line over the town moor, but again, not viable as any kind of longstanding structure on the Moor meets heavy objection even to this day. Gillespie is a keen geologist, he knows that there is an old glacial river bed near the pit head and if you follow it, it comes out at what is now Marinars wharf ( I think it was London Wharf at the time) He knows if you follow the river bed to the letter, you will be in a bed of boulder clay, which is why the tunnel meanders, it literally follows the old river bed, its a narrow channel so that may be why the tunnel only has one channel, no width to build an adjoining tunnel to have a cantilever set up. The drop of tunnel is 221ft on a 1 in 9 gradient which means that gravity did its work, 8 wagons tied up with a rope on the back of last wagon, attached to a rotating drum on a steam engine. Gravity pulls the wagon down, and a signal gets sent up to pit head when wagons are empty. Steam engine fires up and pulls empty wagons back up. Whilst it might seem counter intuitive to operate that way, the tunnel saved 88% of the colliery running costs, no more expensive overheads. Its a feat of victorian engineering and a feat of business acumen in the 1800s, saving operational costs at that level. The reason it went out of business was due to the quality of coal coming from the seam, it was powdered so not very good quality, also the seam would get lost, they'd meet volcanic rock and then the saved expense goes into finding the seam again so it just wasn't financially viable for other reasons. It operated for 18 years as a coal waggonway, which is tragic. After all that ingenuity and hard work. As for it being there longer than thought, although we have little information on record, one of the resources we do have is a number of articles about the planning of the tunnel, the commencement of its build, and its completion. We are quite confident on the dates linked to its construction. It's also not the only tunnel in the area similar in function and style. Opposite vickers Armstrong on Scotswood Road, there is a similar tunnel, which I think runs for 3 miles.

[@1258-Eckhart]

Surely if you can walk the length of the tunnel, one would be able to see any access points below the Civic Centre, thus confirming or denying the rumours.

[@JordanReeve]

The part of the tunnel adjacent to the city centre isn’t accessible to the public. It’s only the lower half that is. The rumour is probably easy to deny, but I like the air of mystery it adds to the story

[@rogerroger5255]

Go onto National Library of Scotland maps. OS Six Inch 1840s-1880s , Spital Tongues colliery is present in detail.

[@petersimpson5859]

The tunnel runs under the grass verge along North Terrace / Claremont Rd. There's a hidden hatch in the grass by the fence.

[@marcross2503]

Yep came here to comment this... around 15yrs or so ago the hatch was just accessible to all with a simple tool to pry it open. A friend of mine climbed down and had an explore. I didn't fancy it so stayed guard...

[@HFamilyDad]

Stopped watching because you keep saying "sort of", sorry.

[@BillyfromConsett]

You’ve missed out on an informative piece of work. You’ve sort of let yourself down 🤣

[@HFamilyDad]

@@BillyfromConsett 9 months on and I've sort of tried to watch it again, good news I sort of got half way through, I think I'll come back in another 9 months and sort of try to complete it, sort of!