Where are your nearest tunnels? That's proper tunnels, tunnels you could actually walk or travel through (trespass nothwithstanding). If you live in the countryside they could be dozens of miles away. If you live in central London the tube might run beneath your flat. I've done some digging, metaphorically, and uncovered mine.
My nearest tunnel: Crossrail(less than 100m)
The closest tunnel to my home belongs to London's flagship new railway, the one that isn't open yet and may not be for some time. Tunnelling machines Jessica and Ellie burrowed their way from Stepney to Stratford eight years ago and just missed me, passing unexpectedly close to where I'm sitting now. According to Crossrailplanning documents one of the twin bores crosses Bow Road at the junction with Fairfield Road, the other outside the former Kings Arms pub and ATS Euromaster garage. They then pass underneath the western side of Grove Hall Park, cross the A12 at the end of Wrexham Road, duck under the River Lea and emerge alongside Pudding Mill Lane station. At present the only people down there are engineers readying the track and drivers testing software, but one day millions of people will speed underneath Bow without ever seeing it. I look forward to standing on top of them.
My 2nd nearest tunnel: Ham and Wick Sewer(150m)
In 1897 the London County Council presented plans to the Main Drainage Committee for a new sewer connecting Hackney Wick to Abbey Mills. I know it ran roughly parallel to the river Lea, although I haven't been able to determine whether it's large enough to permit human access, at least hypothetically. This sewer caused major headaches for Crossrail by existing at precisely the point they needed trains to be rising up to the surface, and at one point there were expensive plans to divert it under Grove Hall Park. Thankfully Crossrailchanged their minds and strengthenedthe pipes instead, avoiding the imposition of half a dozen disruptive worksites locally, and the original Victorian alignment flows on.
My 3rd nearest tunnel: Bow Interchange(200m)
Not only does the Bow Roundabout have a flyover it also has an underpass. Traffic on the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road doesn't want to faff around with lights and signals so civil engineers gifted them direct passage underneath the roundabout, a privilege they retain fifty years later. Walking through the tunnel's not allowed, indeed would be terrifyingly dangerous, and regular buses don't go this way either. That means I've only ever driven through it as a passenger in a car, and even then only rarely because this is normally where you'd turn off, so it's all a bit of a mystery to me. Some might claim that this is an underpass and not a tunnel because it doesn't have official tunnel signage at each end, in which case my nearest (motorway-grade) road tunnel is the Eastway Tunnel at Hackney Wick, well over a mile to the north.
My 4th nearest tunnel: Lea Navigation(225m)
Not many of us can boast a canal tunnel less than five minutes from our front door, although this one's not your traditional narrow brick-lined tunnel, more a dark chamber under concrete slabs created fifty years ago when the Bow Roundabout was plonked on top. I hope it counts as a 'proper' tunnel - it ought to given it takes a minute to walk through. The floatingtowpath added in 2011 is either gloomily atmospheric or a mugger's paradise, depending.
My 5th nearest tunnel: Central line(250m)
The Central line also makes a subterranean dash through my part of Bow without stopping, indeed Mile End to Stratford is the third longest gap between stations on the entire line. The tunnels break off from Bow Road near Bow Road station, then veer north of Bow Bus Garage before joining the mainline alignment, with a telltale ventilation shaft beside the A12 to mark their passing. So very near and yet so far.
My 6th nearest tunnel: Low Level Sewer No 2(300m)
When Joseph Bazalgette contrived his pan-Londonseweragesystem, he built three interceptor sewers north of the Thames - the High Level, the Middle Level and the Low Level. Low Level Sewer No 2 was added as back up thirty years later, draining the unmentionables of Hammersmith and Kensington via Piccadilly, the Strand, the City and Whitechapel on their way to Abbey Mills. It's this sewer that famously clogged with a fatberg expunged in 2017. Round here the sewer's passing is marked by a stinkpipe at the junction of St Leonard's Street and Priory Street, a particularly tall pipe designed to carry any gas as high as possible. The Palace of Westminster's excrement follows Low Level Sewer No 1 via Devons Road, a little further to the south. [map of local sewers]
My 7th nearest tunnel: DLR/Crossways Estate(350m)
The DLR enters a 200m-long tunnel just south of Bow Church station. This doesn't need to exist, the land's all flat, but a concrete shell was deemed useful in order to build some social housing on top. Originally these were the maisonettes of Holyhead Close, until regeneration in 2014 reworked the area into something much more estate-agent-friendly. Most of the tunneltop is now back gardens, although a couple of small blocks of flats sit astride the railway on Trevithick Way. It's quite the model for housing densification, should TfL become increasingly desperate for cash.
I reckon that's a pretty good haul for tunnels within quarter of a mile from home: three railways, two sewers, a dual carriageway and a navigable river. Even better four are publicly accessible, one will be eventually and only the sewers are generally off limits. And it doesn't stop there...
My 8th nearest tunnel: Low Level Sewer No 1(500m) My 9th nearest tunnel:District line(600m) My 10th nearest tunnel:Northern Outfall Sewer(700m)
