Request for help from a newbie RE: Tunnels under Leeds

CathJ · Post by **CathJ** » Wed 26 Oct, 2011 11:50 pm

Geordie-exile wrote: That's better. But don't end a sentence with a preposition. I think you'll find that most houses of the era had cellars, not just those at Bank. I'm not sure how helpful that line of research might be. I know it may not turn into anything worth looking at but I am only researching at the moment as the actual filming of the documentary won't be started until march/april time. The cellar dwellings caught my eye in the index of the book so I went to read what it had to say. It does say further along that many poor dwellings "were crammed into the central parts of Leeds and the 'East End' of the town" I think I will be spending some time in the library finding out if its worth pursuing.

Post by **chameleon** » Thu 27 Oct, 2011 12:24 am

CathJ wrote: Geordie-exile wrote: That's better. But don't end a sentence with a preposition. I think you'll find that most houses of the era had cellars, not just those at Bank. I'm not sure how helpful that line of research might be. I know it may not turn into anything worth looking at but I am only researching at the moment as the actual filming of the documentary won't be started until march/april time. The cellar dwellings caught my eye in the index of the book so I went to read what it had to say. It does say further along that many poor dwellings "were crammed into the central parts of Leeds and the 'East End' of the town" I think I will be spending some time in the library finding out if its worth pursuing. I think this refers mainly to the Quarry Hill area, long since cleared but discussed on here some time ago. Leodis will produce plenty of images from that time.area.http://www.leodis.net/

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Sat 05 Nov, 2011 11:44 pm

Cath, its them cable tunnels that apparently led from the old Whitehall Road power station via Queen St tand then run the full length of the Headrow and beyond that you want to get into. Its all been discussed in detail on here before, as far as I am aware nobody on here has been down them or even has any photographs, other than of the vents on Northern St/ Queen St. If you could wangle access to them using your student credentials then there would be some happy bunnies on this website.

Post by **chameleon** » Sun 06 Nov, 2011 9:58 pm

jonleeds wrote: Cath, its them cable tunnels that apparently led from the old Whitehall Road power station via Queen St tand then run the full length of the Headrow and beyond that you want to get into. Its all been discussed in detail on here before, as far as I am aware nobody on here has been down them or even has any photographs, other than of the vents on Northern St/ Queen St. If you could wangle access to them using your student credentials then there would be some happy bunnies on this website. Well we are at least sure they went from Whitehall Road to Westgate so it's not impossible they run further, I do however still consider it more likely they are simply cable ducts rather than navigable man-size tunnels.A few years back, YW constructed an underground storm-water balancing tank under Queens Street at the top, outside No 25.The excavation was half the width of the road going upto the kerbside adjacent to the building. Having a curious look around one lunch time I saw and took particular note of the presence of a large sewer running into the chamber from the Western side (from under No 25?). The reason for my extra interest was that the cover depth from the road surface to the top of the sewer was fairly shallow and would not allow room for a 'tunnel' as such, to run over it, nor did it seem likely that any tunnel would a be at a depth below this. There would be room for a smaller guage duct however.This could be the reason for there being no clear account of anyone having traversed it - not to mention the restrictions the doubtless precence of H/EHV cables would bring - there is a modern underground substation in Queens Street.

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Mon 07 Nov, 2011 5:24 pm

Hmm, well, we can live in hope... So what is below those vent things on queen street then? Surely they arent just to provide ventilation to a 1' square length of cable ducting ? Are all these tales from retired YEB cable jointers about walking the full length of the headrow along an underground tunnel and seeing passages going off towards what was Lewis's, Schofields, banks etc nonsense? What about that Falk House place? Isnt that meant to link up with the roundabout at the bottom of Eastgate where there is a massive spiral escalator and glass elevators that go right to the centre of the Earth? I've heard its like in that 80's TV series Beauty and the Beast (remember with her out of the Terminator films and that half man / half lion guy) where there are people living in tunnels underground where they were forced to live to escape the council house waiting list...

CathJ · Post by **CathJ** » Mon 07 Nov, 2011 7:02 pm

Hi again I will definitely be taking a book hunting trip to Kirkstall Abbey in the near future. I did have a wander along Northern Street and Queen Street to get some photographs of the air vents but its not really the area I want to explore at the moment, looking more for the myths of tunnels under Boar Lane/ Briggate. I've been doing some searching and reading on here and found a few stories that seem to suggest a passage or tunnel of some sort accessed via the cellars on Boar Lane, perhaps something similar around the Harvey Nichols area of Briggate so that is where I'm researching at the moment. I was also wondering what was originally on Boar Lane and Duncan Street before the buildings that are there now, I came across a picture of Central Market on Leodis but can't quite place it exactly as the image shows Trinity Church being a lot further to the left hand side of the image than it looks today, also the spire/tower looks to be the wrong shape. I am only going on Leodis saying that it is Trinity Church in the back ground but maybe it is documented wrong and there was a church in the direction of where the Corn Exchange is now. This is the image, the church is just visible next to the crease at the left of the page, http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... 043Another interesting place to pop up was Mercury Office Yard, was this yard removed when Duncan Street was widened in 1904? Cath

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Mon 07 Nov, 2011 7:53 pm

Cath, I dont know about tunnels under Briggate or Boar Lane, there did used to be underground subways and public toilets on Briggate that were there until the early 80s, nothing particularly exciting about them though. A lot of what people talk about tends to be heresay and probably fanciful imaginings (as in my earlier post... ahem!). I doubt you'd be able to find any hard evidence to prove existence of any of these so-called tunnels other than the ramblings of some of the older folk who recall seeing things when they used to work somewhere in days gone by.

liits · Post by **liits** » Mon 07 Nov, 2011 8:07 pm

CathJ wrote: Hi again I was also wondering what was originally on Boar Lane and Duncan Street before the buildings that are there now, I came across a picture of Central Market on Leodis but can't quite place it exactly as the image shows Trinity Church being a lot further to the left hand side of the image than it looks today, also the spire/tower looks to be the wrong shape. I am only going on Leodis saying that it is Trinity Church in the back ground but maybe it is documented wrong and there was a church in the direction of where the Corn Exchange is now. This is the image, the church is just visible next to the crease at the left of the page, http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... 043Another interesting place to pop up was Mercury Office Yard, was this yard removed when Duncan Street was widened in 1904? Cath Mercury Office Yard is marked in red.As to the image from Leodis. This is an engraving so if the church spire is different and it looks to be in the wrong place, it may be down to artistic license.The Central Markets is the large building that occupies the block between Central Road and Vicar Lane.

CathJ · Post by **CathJ** » Fri 11 Nov, 2011 5:30 pm

Hi Jon, yeah I know a lot of it is urban myth which is kind of what I'm basing my documentary on, where did these stories start and is there any truth to them kind of thing. Although some of the stories are very similar so I do wonder if there is something to them. I'm going to follow Phils advice and speak to the landlord/lady of The Duncan and see if they will let me in their cellar though. Liits, thank you, that makes a lot more sense than where I thought Central Market was.

LS1 · Post by **LS1** » Fri 11 Nov, 2011 5:47 pm

liits wrote: CathJ wrote: Hi again I was also wondering what was originally on Boar Lane and Duncan Street before the buildings that are there now, I came across a picture of Central Market on Leodis but can't quite place it exactly as the image shows Trinity Church being a lot further to the left hand side of the image than it looks today, also the spire/tower looks to be the wrong shape. I am only going on Leodis saying that it is Trinity Church in the back ground but maybe it is documented wrong and there was a church in the direction of where the Corn Exchange is now. This is the image, the church is just visible next to the crease at the left of the page, http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... 043Another interesting place to pop up was Mercury Office Yard, was this yard removed when Duncan Street was widened in 1904? Cath Mercury Office Yard is marked in red.As to the image from Leodis. This is an engraving so if the church spire is different and it looks to be in the wrong place, it may be down to artistic license.The Central Markets is the large building that occupies the block between Central Road and Vicar Lane. Liits, do you mean New Market Street for where the Central Market was between? I'm a bit confused as to where it was.Cheers