Use as a World War II Air-raid Shelter
The tunnel's second main use was during the Second World War when almost the full length was fitted out for use as an air-raid shelter at a cost of £37,000.
The original plan was to construct eighteen entrances into the tunnel but, because of time contraints and engineering difficulties, only seven were completed. These were situated at Claremont Road, Hancock Museum, St Thomas' Churchyard, Ridley Place, Shieldfield Green, Crawhall Road and Ouse Street.
Ouse Street was the first entrance to be completed and it is very different to the others in that because of the shallow depth of the tunnel at this point it has a fairly short entrance ramp with a gentle gradient. This could have been a problem should a bomb have landed near the entrance or on the line of the tunnel. In order to minimise casualties in the event of such an incident a series of five sets of blast walls were constructed. These consist of three half-walls which slightly overlap so the people could move up and down the tunnel but any blast that might have occured would have been deflected.
Because of the additional depth where they were situated, the other six entrances were all constructed with bends and angles which would have acted as blast deflectors. For example, at the entrance at the top of Crawhall Road, the tunnel is at its greatest depth of 85 feet and this enabled the engineers to build the entrance ramp with three right angled bends in it together with a thick baffle wall across the bottom of the ramp. The angles and the wall would have offered protection even from a direct hit on the entrance at the surface.
A new concrete floor was laid with a drainage channel down the west side. Electric lighting was fitted with stocks of hurricane lamps at various points in the tunnel for use if the mains electricity should fail. The tunnel was cleaned and some parts the walls were whitewashed to reflect what light there was.
Seating was provided for up to 9,000 people as well as bunks for at least 500 overnight occupants. Chemical toilets were provided near the entrances situated in cubicles constructed from a wooden frame covered by hessian.
Conditions in the tunnel can't have been very good and there are some surviving documents confirming that the Medical Officer of Health for Newcastle tried to have conditions improved. Following a visit to the tunnel, a civil servant produced a report in which he writes: "It occurs to me that, as this is a mining district, the persons who will shelter in this tunnel are possibly better fitted constitutionally to resist underground and damp conditions than those in the South". It would seem that it is official, they are softies down south!
One attempt to stop the ingress of water was the gunniting of a section of the tunnel south of the Crawhall Road entrance. Gunnite is a mixture of sand and cement which was sprayed under pressure on to the walls in an attempt to seal them. This proved to be expensive and not very effective and doesn't appear to have been done in any other area.
At the end of the War all fittings were removed from the tunnel and the entrances sealed other than that at Ouse Street which was on private land. The Ouse Street entrance is the only one that is now accessible although the one at Hancock Museum is visible but sealed.
© Phil Thirkell April 2006
Page updated: April 2006
