COAL SHUTE, FUNGI, REFUGE

Newcastle Upon Tyne is known as a city of bridges, but what many don’t know is that there are just as many passageways beneath our feet. The Victoria Tunnel is a subterranean wagonway under the city, running from the Town Moor all the way to the Quayside. To a riot of applause (and a cannon salute to boot!) the tunnel was opened in 1842, with an aim to make the transportation of coal to the riverside from Leazes Main Colliery easier and less costly. Before the tunnel, the coal would have had to be hauled through the cramped, cobblestoned streets—a slow and laborious journey.

The tunnel, which follows the natural path of an ancient riverbed, ran for 2.25 miles, of which only around half a mile is still accessible today. It took an impressive two years to complete, the clay emptied out by hand and fired into bricks for the tunnel’s arch. It only served its original purpose for a relatively short period of eighteen years before the colliery was closed and the tunnel lay forgotten (save for a brief stint as an edible mushroom farm) until 1939.

When World War II broke out, the Victoria Tunnel was fitted with concrete blast walls, electric lighting, and chemical toilets, ready for use as a bomb shelter. The three-tier bunk beds that once lined the walls would have left scarce room for even a child to squeeze between the top bunk and the top of the tunnel.  Rumour has it that a man who lived through the first World War, suffering from what we now know to be PTSD, descended into the tunnel at the first rumblings of another war and refused to resurface again until a newspaper was brought to him declaring that the war was over.

Inside the council chamber is no less otherworldly. The whole space was masterfully designed with acoustics in mind. Coated in a special kind of acoustic plaster, the ceiling was created to bounce the sound back down to the Swedish acoustic marble floor, and all around the panelling made from Cedar of Lebanon. All of the materials used in the Council Chamber were carefully selected. The seats are the original leather hide, in a very modernist jade green colour. The council convene here on the first Wednesday of every month