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You are here: Home › Culture › Architecture
Tunnels under Manchester
Helen Clifton goes digging under the city and Jonathan Schofield offers you a tour of Underground Manchester
Date Published: 28/05/2008
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Beneath Manchester there's a subterranean world where time – to use a cliché – has stood still for many a long year. These eerie, vast underground caverns, canals and walkways (which could have run from the city centre to Salford, Reddish, and Old Trafford)were once home to thousands of people as well as huge narrow boats and entire workforces.
It's mind boggling that it has remained undocumented for so long, but now the existence of these forgotten spaces is finally coming to light. Timperley writer Keith Warrender, 60, wrote Underground Manchester after being inspired by a 1975 series of radio programmes about the tunnels. The book is compelling, perhaps because the subject taps into our primeval fear and fascination with labyrinths, catacombs and the dark. It documents escape tunnels used by Catholics and Jacobites (which all seem to lead to Manchester Cathedral), 20th century communication tunnels and mines, canals, and underground pathways, as well as the Victorian underground dwellings used by 18,000 migrant workers. With Keith as a guide, I visited the underground Manchester and Salford Junction Canal, built in 1829 from the Rochdale Canal to the River Irwell across th city centre. This transported goods between the Great Northern Railway Warehouse on Deansgate to Grape Street, near Granada Studios. It is still possible to travel by dinghy along a part of the canal, as some plucky BBC journalists did in 1976.  The 17-foot high unlit tunnel, accessible from an 80-foot staircase running from the Great Northern’s entertainment complex, is exceptional. It was drained to provide shelter for up to 1,600 people during WWII, and you can still see the blast walls where families huddled up against the damp and cold. Mums looked after children in shifts so they could sleep, and the warden’s lookout post is there, as well as the original latrines. The walls are riddled with spooky blocked-off mini-tunnels leading off to Watson Street, and the cavernous area under Manchester Central, which was filled in to provide the foundations for the old Central Station, is flanked by a huge arch straddling two massive brick lift shafts used to transport goods to the surface. This part is like Moria in the Lord of the Rings. 
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Even if you aren’t excited by engineering feats, it’s somehow wrong that such impressive structures aren’t seen by more people, unchanged as they are since some of the most heady periods of Manchester’s history. Keith says it is a scandal. “It’s a great tourist attraction. People would come down here in their thousands to see all of this. At Stockport Air Raid Shelters you have the sights and sounds of the war time, and memorabilia. Manchester ought to be doing something better.” He adds that many tunnels only exist because of the work of dedicated individuals like Harry ‘The Human Mole’ Smith, who spent 50 years uncovering many routes - and their future is endangered.  “I don’t think redevelopment has helped reveal secrets,” Keith says. “If anything, it’s done the opposite.” Because of this lack of hard evidence, the truth about these tunnels seems much stranger than any fiction. The ‘Guardian’ bunker built 200 feet below Back George Street and George Street was constructed in the 1950s to provide a secure telephone link for the city in case of an atomic bomb. It was only taken off the secret list in 1968, but the full picture has yet to be made public. Apparently, Catholic pilgrims walked from 16th century Salford manor house Kersal Cell to Manchester Cathedral along a tunnel following Bury New Road. Keith says there are ‘very graphic’ accounts of people getting lost in these passages. Althought other commentators think these stories are without any foundation whatsoever. There is also a murky character by the name of William Connell, who died in 1988 and whose unique knowledge of the tunnels prompted the curiosity of journalists and historians he came into contact with. Connell seemed to have close contacts with some of the most powerful and notorious men in Manchester's history, including Nazi sympathiser Lord Haw Haw, as well as those responsible for the city’s defence systems. But Keith has little time for the conspiracy theorists. “There has been a lot of speculation. Hopefully I’ve been able to say what is true and what isn’t, to a certain extent. I think the fascination comes from a fear of the unknown. There are quite a few stories many years ago of parents telling their children, ‘Don’t go behind the door because there are skeletons there.'” “It’s a shame really, because people say, ‘There was tunnel down there but I didn’t go in.’ You think, why didn’t you go and see it” Underground Manchester, £15.95, available from here
Confidential is offering twenty readers the chance to visit tunnels of underground Manchester. The tour will be lead by professional guide and Confidential editor, Jonathan Schofield, and will take place at 1pm on Friday 13 June. This competition has now closed.
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Jonny Van Goth says..“ Absolutely fascinating. It would be a really good experience and treat to be able to explore these.”
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Hesam says..“ I think Manchester should do more to promote these tunnels as well. Maybe the coucil are keeping quiet because that's where they want to put travelling football fans in the future!”
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Lee says..“ Aggh - gremlins - I can't register for the draw!”
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Technical says..“ Hi everyone, sorry about that. The form should be working fine now.”
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The Truth says..“ Apparently it's where all of Manchester's, Man Utd fans have been hiding all these years...”
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bob says..“ count me in, went to these below circle club one time. Plenty of ghosts down there.”
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Anonymous says..“ How fascinating, would love to be able to see some of these sites!”
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ANON says..“ my o/h has read this book and says its amazing, i hope i win the tour for him he would be well chuffed ”
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Darren says..“ where is the exhibition Alan? your link doesnt work?”
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crazyjohn says..“ Weren't they building a link from Manchester to Deansgate underground? I've entered. HOpefully David Bowie will be on hand to guide me through the Labynth or I'll be gutted.”
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Nik says..“ Wow - fascinating!!!”
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Tim Cimes says..“ I wish i wasn't busy that day. They totally should run tourist trips down there, i think they would be really popular.”
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RhineBlaze says..“ FANTASTIC - wish there would be a regular tour for that - would love to come along but am out of the country on the day...”
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Osama Bin Laden Lad says..“ Eh, keep out my hideout like. It's taken me ages to get down here nice and I've only just got the carpet down. I don't like visitors, especially Americans.”
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roger says..“ Is Derek Acorah coming?”
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cs says..“ Get Urbis on the case, Jonathan. They love their tours around the city.”
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Tomcat says..“ The Pic Vic underground was stopped because of the nuclear bunker (legend has it they started on a station at the Arndale and hit a unknown object) Bring on the tours!!! ”
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Friberg says..“ Why are all you freaky people obsessed with tunnels? Is it a Freudian thing?”
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The Mole says..“ It'd be a damn site less busier walking round the tunnels than dodging chavs on Market Street! get em re-opened! Fascinating stuff...”
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Andrea says..“ I went to this book signing in February, what a fascinating talk the author gave! I hope I win this competition! ”
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Alan says..“ Any chance of a follow up article with a report on the walk - there's obviously enough interest to make it worthwhile!”
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mark m says..“ There is an underground radar/bunker in Nantwich http://www.hackgreen.co.uk”
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JS says..“ Why has no one asked exactly where the entrance is to the Great Northern site? Can anyone get in? I live only a few mins away and would love to have a nosey!”
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Raven75 says..“ I've heard that the entrance to this is through a locked manhole cover in the basement of the car park?”
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i sent you a e-mail to yours as above but i never got a reply back
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Bob, didn't you listen to the tour guide while you were down there? You WERE in a canal tunnel, the towpath is there, the brick arched roof was above you, you also stood underneath Manchester Central in a massive cavern.
Were you expecting it to be like Blue John Caverns, or Ingleborough Cave, or what?
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