Tower Subway
Encyclopedia
The Tower Subway is a tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

, dug in 1869, beneath the River Thames in central London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, close to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

. Its alignment runs between Tower Hill on the north side of the river and Vine Lane (off Tooley Street) to the south. Its innovative method of construction provided the template for the construction in 1890 of the City & South London Railway
City & South London Railway
The City and South London Railway was the first deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction...

, the first of London's "Tube" railways.

The tunnel is called a subway
Subway (underpass)
In England and Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and some Commonwealth countries , the term subway normally refers to a specially constructed underpass for pedestrians and/or cyclists beneath a road or railway, allowing them to reach the other side in safety.The term is also used in the...

 according to normal British
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...

 usage, indicating a tunnel for pedestrians, and not to the American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 usage, equivalent to underground rapid transit
Rapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...

.

It is sometimes cited as the world's first underground tube railway, though it was not the first underground railway
Metropolitan railway
Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...

.

Origins of the Tower Subway

The construction of the Tower Subway was authorised by an Act of Parliament
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 in 1868, which established the Tower Subway Company with three Directors and a capital of £12,000. However, at first no contractor could be found willing to undertake the work, due to the immense difficulties and expense incurred by Marc Isambard Brunel's
Marc Isambard Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, FRS FRSE was a French-born engineer who settled in England. He preferred the name Isambard, but is generally known to history as Marc to avoid confusion with his more famous son Isambard Kingdom Brunel...

 Thames Tunnel
Thames Tunnel
The Thames Tunnel is an underwater tunnel, built beneath the River Thames in London, United Kingdom, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 feet wide by 20 feet high and is 1,300 feet long, running at a depth of 75 feet below the river's surface...

.

However, James Henry Greathead
James Henry Greathead
James Henry Greathead was an engineer renowned for his work on the London Underground railway.-Early life:Greathead was born in Grahamstown, South Africa; of English descent, Greathead's grandfather had emigrated to South Africa in 1820. He was educated at St Andrew's College, Grahamstown, and the...

, then only 24, tendered for the construction of the tunnel and access shafts for the sum of £9,400, with Peter W. Barlow
Peter W. Barlow
Peter William Barlow was an English civil engineer.He was born at Woolwich, the son of an engineer and mathematician, professor Peter Barlow of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich...

 and Barlow's son Peter W. Barlow Jr. as resident engineer and designed and built the tunnel in 1869–1870. In conjunction with Barlow Sr. he designed a cylindrical wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

 tunnelling shield
Tunnelling shield
A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used in the excavation of tunnels through soil that is too soft or fluid to remain stable during the time it takes to line the tunnel with a support structure of concrete, cast iron or steel...

, the Barlow-Greathead shield, which greatly improved on Marc Isambard Brunel's shield developed for the construction of the Thames Tunnel.

Greathead's shield was effectively a wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

 sleeve with the same diameter - 7 in 3 in (2.21 m) - as the tunnel. As excavation progressed, it was forced ahead by hand-operated screw jacks to act both as a ring‑shaped cutter and protection for the workmen. It was 4 in 9 in (1.45 m) long, 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) thick, and weighed 2.125 long tons (2.2 t). Unlike Brunel's large and unwieldy rectangular shield, which weighed 120 tons, it moved in one piece. The shield was made with a slight taper at the front to reduce the friction of the surrounding clay, and the front of the cylinder was stiffened by a cast‑iron ring bolted to it; behind which was a diaphragm, or bulkhead, with a hatchway through which the workers could pass to the face.

Work on the Tower Subway began in February 1869, with the boring of entrance shafts on each side of the river at slightly different depths. The north shaft at Lower Thames Street on Tower Hill
Tower Hill
Tower Hill is an elevated spot northwest of the Tower of London, just outside the limits of the City of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Formerly it was part of the Tower Liberty under the direct administrative control of Tower...

 is 60 feet (18 m) deep, while that on the south bank at Vine Lane is 50 feet (15 m) deep. The two shafts were later fitted with steam-powered lifts for passenger use. The tunneling itself started in April and finished in December and was bored through a fortuitously stable layer of the London Clay
London Clay
The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for the fossils it contains. The fossils from the Lower Eocene indicate a moderately warm climate, the flora being tropical or subtropical...

 that lay 22 feet (6.7 m) below the river bed, and below the soft alluvial deposits that had so plagued the construction by Brunel of the earlier Thames Tunnel a few miles further downstream. This, combined with the much simpler nature of the project — the excavation face was only one twentieth that of the Thames Tunnel — enabled very rapid progress. The under-river section was completed in only fourteen weeks and the entire tunnel was constructed in less than a year, marking a vast improvement over the tortuous progress of the Thames Tunnel. It also marked a significant technical advance — for the first time, cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 rather than brick was used to line the tunnel, segments being put into place behind the tunneling shield as it moved forward so that the shield's screw jacks could push against it.

The Subway was originally intended to provide a passenger service beneath the river. A small cable car
Cable car (railway)
A cable car or cable railway is a mass transit system using rail cars that are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required...

 (dubbed an omnibus by the tunnel's operators) shuttled a maximum of 12 passengers from end to end through a single bore, 450 yards (411.5 m) long and 7 feet (2.1 m) in diameter, on 2 in 6 in (762 mm) gauge track. The journey, powered by a 4 hp
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

 (3 kW) stationary steam engine
Stationary steam engine
Stationary steam engines are fixed steam engines used for pumping or driving mills and factories, and for power generation. They are distinct from locomotive engines used on railways, traction engines for heavy steam haulage on roads, steam cars , agricultural engines used for ploughing or...

 on the south side of the tunnel, took about 70 seconds. However, the cramped, low-capacity Subway proved uneconomical almost as soon it was officially opened on 2 August 1870: the railway service lasted just three months, too few passengers being carried and the speed of the carriage being too slow, and the Tower Subway went into receivership
Receivership
In law, receivership is the situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver, a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights." The receivership remedy is an equitable remedy that emerged in...

 in November 1870.

The tunnel was subsequently converted to a pedestrian walkway with the cable car and steam engine removed, gas lights installed and the passenger lifts replaced with spiral staircases. It became a very popular way to cross the river, averaging 20,000 people a week (a million a year) at a cost of a halfpenny each way. Its main users were reportedly "the working classes who were formerly entirely dependent on the ferries".

In September 1888 the Subway briefly achieved a certain notoriety after a man brandishing a knife
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...

 was seen in the tunnel at the time when Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

 was committing murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

s in nearby Whitechapel
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...

.

Tower Subway was eventually superseded by Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, England, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of London, from which it takes its name...

, which was constructed a few hundred yards downriver and opened in 1894. This caused an immediate collapse in the Subway's income, as the bridge — unlike the tunnel — provided a toll-free crossing. There was thus no longer any incentive to use the Subway. In 1897, Parliament passed an Act authorising the sale of the tunnel to the London Hydraulic Power Company
London Hydraulic Power Company
The London Hydraulic Power Company was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network of high-pressure cast iron water mains under London. It was the successor to the Steam Wharf and Warehouse Company, founded in 1871 by Edward B Ellington...

 for £3,000, and the Subway finally closed to passenger traffic in 1898.

Contemporary accounts of the Subway

The Subway was, by all accounts, not a good place for a claustrophobe to visit. Charles Dickens, Jr
Charles Dickens, Jr
Charles Dickens, Jr, born Charles Culliford Boz Dickens , was the first child of the novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. A failed businessman, he became the editor of his father's magazine All the Year Round, and a successful writer of dictionaries...

 reported that
"there is not much head-room left, and it is not advisable for any but the very briefest of Her Majesty's lieges to attempt the passage in high-heeled boots, or with a hat to which he attaches any particular value."


The Italian writer Edmondo De Amicis
Edmondo De Amicis
Edmondo De Amicis was an Italian novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer. His best-known book is the children's novel Heart.-Early career:...

 (1846–1908) gave a vivid description of a passage through the Subway in his Jottings about London:
"As I was thinking of these things I disappeared from the world indeed, going down a lighted spiral staircase which buries itself in the earth on the right bank of the Thames, opposite the Tower. I went down and down between two dingy walls until I found myself at the round opening of the gigantic iron tube, which seems to undulate like a great intestine in the enormous belly of the river. The inside of this tube presents the appearance of a subterranean corridor, of which the end is invisible. It is lighted by a row of lights as far as you can see, which shed a veiled light, like sepulchral lamps; the atmosphere is foggy; you go along considerable stretches without meeting a soul; the walls sweat like those of an aqueduct; the floor moves under your feet like the deck of a vessel; the steps and voices of the people coming the other way give forth a cavernous sound, and are heard before you see the people, and they at a distance seem like great shadows; there is, in short, a sort of something mysterious, which without alarming causes in your heart a vague sense of disquiet. When then you have reached the middle and no longer see the end in either direction, and feel the silence of a catacomb, and know not how much farther you must go, and reflect that in the water beneath, in the obscure depths of the river, is where suicides meet death, and that over your head vessels are passing, and that if a crack should open in the wall you would not even have the time to recommend your soul to God, in that moment how lovely seems the sun!

I believe I had come a good part of a mile when I reached the opposite opening on the left bank of the Thames; I went up a staircase, the mate of the other, and came out in front of the Tower of London."

The Subway today

After its closure, the tunnel gained a new purpose as a route for hydraulics
Hydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...

 tubes operated by the London Hydraulic Power Company
London Hydraulic Power Company
The London Hydraulic Power Company was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network of high-pressure cast iron water mains under London. It was the successor to the Steam Wharf and Warehouse Company, founded in 1871 by Edward B Ellington...

, and water mains. It was badly damaged during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when a German bomb fell in the river near Tower Pier
Tower Pier
Tower Pier may refer to:*Tower Millennium Pier, the passenger boat service pier on the River Thames, London, UK, located next to the Tower of London....

 in December 1940 and exploded on the river bed very close to the tunnel's roof. The shock of the blast compressed the tunnel radially, reducing its diameter to only 4 feet (1.2 m) at the point of impact, but fortunately the tunnel's lining was not penetrated. During the course of repair work, it was found that — apart from the bomb damage — the tunnel had survived seventy years of use in excellent condition.

While it is no longer used for hydraulic tubes, the tunnel still carries water mains. The hydraulic tubes, once a major source of power in the centre of London, have since been replaced by telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

 cable
Cable
A cable is two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly. In mechanics cables, otherwise known as wire ropes, are used for lifting, hauling and towing or conveying force through tension. In electrical engineering cables are used to carry...

s.

A small round entrance building survives at Tower Hill near the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

's ticket office, a short distance to the west of the main entrance to the Tower. This is not the original entrance, but was built in the 1920s by the London Hydraulic Power Company. A ring of lettering gives the date of construction and names the LHPC, as if it had built the subway originally, which it did not. The corresponding entrance on the south bank of the Thames was demolished in the 1990s, and a new one has been built in its place. It is located just behind the Unicorn Theatre on Tooley Street, but there is no plaque to mark the site.

See also

  • Crossings of the River Thames
    Crossings of the River Thames
    This is a list of crossings of the River Thames including bridges, tunnels and ferries. There are 214 bridges, over 20 tunnels, six public ferries and one ford.-Barrier and boundary:...

  • Subterranean London
    Subterranean London
    The metropolis of London has been occupied for millennia, and has over that time acquired a large number of subterranean structures.These have served a number of purposes:-Water and waste:Since its foundation, the Thames has been at the heart of London...

  • Tunnels underneath the River Thames
    Tunnels underneath the River Thames
    The table below lists many of the tunnels under the River Thames in and near London, which, thanks largely to its underlying bed of clay, is one of the most tunnelled cities in the world. The tunnels are used for road vehicles, pedestrians, Tube and railway lines and utilities...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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