Falling Down the Thames Blog 33, 29th October 2014
Rivers and Tunnels
The Wind in the Willows, the 1908 book by Kenneth Grahame, tells of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Toad, Mr. Badger and an assortment of other animals that live near the banks of the River Thames. Some chapters are light and breezy, while others have a more sinister tone about them.
The story about Mole wandering away from Rat’s home in the fading light of a Winter’s afternoon is one of the more sinister ones. Mole becomes lost, and the Wild Wood is full of dangers. Although Mole is eventually discovered, hiding in a hole in a beech tree, by Rat, both characters are now in peril. By chance, they come across the front door of Mr. Badger, who provides Rat and Mole with a hearty meal, and allows them to warm themselves by the fireplace in his underground labyrinthine home.
But Rat lives by the riverside, and soon he becomes restless in Mr. Badger’s home. “The underground atmosphere was oppressing him, and getting on his nerves, and he seemed really to be afraid that the river would run away if he wasn’t there to look after it.”
Being an understanding sort, “the Badger, taking up his lantern again, led the way along a damp and airless tunnel that wound and dipped, part vaulted, part hewn through solid rock, for a weary distance that seemed to be miles.” Eventually the tunnel system emerged at the edge of the Wild Wood, not far from the river’s edge.
Those dark and airless tunnels probably left Rat feeling very anxious. If so, then he was not alone in those feelings of anxiety; according to the National Health Service, as many as one person in ten in the United Kingdom experience feelings of claustrophobia.
And what does all of this have to do with the plans of Krista and me to pilot a canoe and then a kayak the length of the River Thames? It seems as though we will be paddling over a surprising number of tunnels that pass beneath the river. Many tunnels allow trains of London’s famous Underground system to pass from one side of the river to the other, from Wapping to Rotherhithe, from Westminster to Waterloo, and so on. Several tunnels house electricity and telecommunications cables. There are road tunnels and tunnels for pedestrians, all passing under England’s greatest river.
Strangely, I have not been able to find a single reliable report of a tunnel under the River Thames anywhere outside of greater London.
Next week I will describe the four most interesting tunnels under the Thames, and the efforts of Krista and me to get permission to walk through them as part of our Falling Down the Thames adventure.
- Glen
Photo credits: illustrations from The Wind in the Willows by Ernest H. Shepard