1880 Channel Tunnel Attempt December 2010

Right after report not long back myself and uncle b decided we'd put this off long enough so cold weather and long walk aside we decided to go for it,we where joined by obscurity ,maniac and ofatjameso...was cold wet and thats before we hit the tunnel,excuse quality of pictures as finding a steady unmoving part of ground to place tripod wasn't easy..Thanks to obscurity for pointing out the Nice bit of graffiti

Many proposals had been made for a Channel Tunnel dating as far back as Napoleonic times and in 1875 serious planning began on both sides of the Channel. However, early attempts on the English side were not very successful and flooding was a continual problem. In 1880 a test shaft was sunk at Abbot’s Cliff near Folkestone, followed by a second shaft at Shakespeare Cliff in 1881. The tunnel was expected to be completed by 1886, but the British Government were beginning to grow increasingly concerned that the Tunnel would render Britain extremely vulnerable in the face of an invading army from Europe (by this time recently unified Germany were perceived as posing the greatest military threat to Britain). The government remained concerned; very little work proceeded after 1882 and the project was forcibly abandoned in 1898 when bring was permanently restrained through the High Court
History taken from underground kent

For a more in-depth history you could check here…
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/c/channel_tunnel_1880_attempt/index.shtml
or do a bit of a Google

Right some pictures of the evening.

















And cheers again to obs for pointing this out as id walked past it twice...



..A very cold wet night but worth it for a look at something we'd heard and seen a fair bit about before