thumb|upright=1.3|Inside the Thames Tunnel in the mid-19th century

thumb|260px|[[Banquet in the Thames Tunnel by George Jones, 1827]]

The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures wide by high and is long, running at a depth of below the river surface measured at high tide. It is the first tunnel known to have been constructed successfully underneath a navigable river. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel, and his son, Isambard, using the tunnelling shield newly invented by the elder Brunel and Thomas Cochrane.

The tunnel was originally designed for horse-drawn carriages, but was mainly used by pedestrians and became a tourist attraction. In 1869 it was converted into a railway tunnel for use by the East London line which, since 2010, is part of the London Overground railway network under the ownership of Transport for London.

History and development

Construction

At the start of the 19th century, there was a pressing need for a new land connection between the north and south banks of the Thames to link the expanding docks on each side of the river. The engineer Ralph Dodd tried, but failed, to build a tunnel between Gravesend and Tilbury in 1799.

Between 1805 and 1809, a group of Cornish miners, including Richard Trevithick, tried to dig a tunnel further upriver between Rotherhithe and Wapping/Limehouse, but failed because of the difficult conditions of the ground. The Cornish miners were used to hard rock and did not modify their methods for soft clay and quicksand. This Thames Archway project was abandoned after the initial pilot tunnel (a 'driftway') flooded twice when of a total of had been dug. It only measured by , and was intended as a drain for a larger tunnel for passenger use.

The Anglo-French engineer Marc Brunel refused to accept this conclusion. In 1814 he proposed to Emperor Alexander I of Russia a plan to build a tunnel under the river Neva in St Petersburg. This scheme was turned down (a bridge was built instead) and Brunel continued to develop ideas for new methods of tunnelling.

Each of the twelve frames of the shield weighed over . He was sent to Brislington, near Bristol, to recuperate. There he heard about the competition to build what became the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Completion

thumb|center|upright=2.2|The Thames Tunnel excavation as it was, probably around 1840

thumb|upright=1.1|Underground route and approaches (highlighted in red) to the Thames Tunnel

In December 1834 Marc Brunel succeeded in raising enough money, including a loan of £247,000 from the Treasury, to continue construction.

In 1835, the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi parodied the construction of the Thames Tunnel in lines 126–129 of the poem .

Impeded by further floods (23 August and 3 November 1837, 20 March 1838, 3 April 1840) and became the subject of popular songs. The American traveller William Allen Drew commented that "No one goes to London without visiting the Tunnel" and described it as the "eighth wonder of the world". The American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne visited it a few years after Drew, and wrote in 1855 that the tunnel:

Conversion into a railway tunnel

thumb|upright=1.1|An 1870 view of a train exiting the Thames Tunnel at Wapping

thumb|upright=1.1|Inside the tunnel, 2010

The tunnel was purchased in September 1865 at a cost of £800,000 (equivalent to £ million in ) by the East London Railway Company, a consortium of six mainline railways which sought to use the tunnel to provide a rail link for goods and passengers between Wapping (and later Liverpool Street) and the South London line. The tunnel's generous headroom, resulting from the architects' original intention of accommodating horse-drawn carriages, also provided a sufficient loading gauge for trains.

The line's engineer was Sir John Hawkshaw who was also noted, with W. H. Barlow, for the major re-design and completion of Isambard Brunel's long-abandoned Clifton Suspension Bridge at Bristol, which was completed in 1864.

The first train ran through the tunnel on 7 December 1869.

Following an agreement to leave a short section at one end of the tunnel untreated, and more sympathetic treatment of the rest of the tunnel, the work went ahead and the route reopened – much later than originally anticipated – in 1998. The tunnel closed again from 23 December 2007 to permit tracklaying and resignalling for the East London Line extension. The extension work resulted in the tunnel becoming part of the new London Overground. After its reopening on 27 April 2010, it was used by mainline trains again.

Influence

thumb|upright=0.9|A commemorative plaque at [[Rotherhithe railway station|Rotherhithe underground station before the East London line was closed in 2007]]

The construction of the Thames Tunnel showed that it was indeed possible to build underwater tunnels, despite the previous scepticism of many engineers. Several new underwater tunnels were built in the UK in the following decades: the Tower Subway in London; the Severn Tunnel under the River Severn; and the Mersey Railway Tunnel under the River Mersey. Brunel's tunnelling shield was later refined, with James Henry Greathead playing a particularly important role in developing the technology.

In 1991, the Thames Tunnel was designated as an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Civil Engineers.

In 1995 the tunnel was listed at Grade II* in recognition of its architectural importance. The tunnel has held tours three times in the last 20 years as of 2025.

In the 1860s, when trains started running through the tunnel, the entrance shaft at Rotherhithe was used for ventilation. The staircase was removed to reduce the risk of fire. In 2011, a concrete raft was built near the bottom of the shaft, above the tracks, when the tunnel was upgraded for the London Overground network. This space, with walls blackened with smoke from steam trains, forms part of the museum and functions at times as a concert venue and occasional bar. A rooftop garden has been built on top of the shaft. In 2016 the entrance hall opened as an exhibition space, with a staircase providing access to the shaft for the first time in over 150 years.

See also

  • List of crossings of the River Thames
  • Tunnels underneath the River Thames

Notes

References

  • "Brief history during the Snow era" UCLA School of Public Health
  • The Brunel Museum – Based in Rotherhithe, London, the museum is housed in the building that contained the pumps to keep the Thames Tunnel dry
  • Brunel's Thames Tunnel BBC News – Slideshow of Thames Tunnel images
  • London's Oldest Underwater Tunnel – slideshow by Life magazine
  • The Thames Tunnel: a tunnel book Flickr, 23 May 2006 – Photos of a promotional book commemorating the opening of the tunnel
  • Thames Tunnel Brunel portal
  • Thames Tunnel photoset Flickr, 12–13 March 2010
  • Photos of the East London Line and Thames Tunnel while still London Underground
  • Thames Tunnel: Rare access to 'eighth wonder of world' – BBC News (26 May 2014) – A brief 'potted history' (a 2-minute video filmed in the tunnel)
  • Thames Tunnel Company (1836) An explanation of the works of the tunnel under the Thames from Rotherhithe to Wapping – digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library