but this time does tell a very very different story
good morning everybody um so i'm going to have a very different conversation with you today
but first for context my name's paul ahead of me is the gelding country park now for those
of you local to nottinghamshire nottingham you'll know exactly what i'm doing today
so the conversation i wanted to have with you was about tunnels and how dangerous tunnels are
uh the potential dangers and people's perceptions of that sort of exploration and history so um
bear with me today because i've got a little bit of waffle coming at you
so the first question we're often asked is do you consider it dangerous do you consider looking at
old tunnels and structures and infrastructure a danger and by and large the answer is often no uh
we'll come to that a little bit more because mapperley tunnel which is where
we're gonna have a look today is often said to be one of the most dangerous and
that'll be the title of many a youtube video but do you consider this type of exploration
dangerous the answers are unequivocal no and i'll come to that in a little bit
i thought i'd got my bearings wrong for a minute because there's a big uh edge down
there a big uh cutting i thought maybe i've got my bearings wrong but i guess that's just an old
quarry or something or quarry up to it but um clearly it's not and i'll just get back on track
so the next question we're often asked and we often talk about are the rights and wrongs of
going into an abandoned tunnel or trying to get a picture of something that is
sort of long forgotten a piece of infrastructure that's 200 years old 150 years old
and we we talked about that yesterday in a video where we wanted to get a picture
of an old aqueduct and it meant going off of the pathway 20 yards and there was a sign saying
prosecutors will be oh sorry trespassers will be prosecuted and we found it ludicrous because we
literally wanted a step about 20 yards that way no fences just to get a picture of an aqueduct
so in that circumstance we would do it every day of the week
so i'm now in the right cutting i can see a tunnel up ahead of me now obviously because we
talked to a lot of other people that do similar things to us um i once asked somebody what do
you feel about going into tunnels that could obviously be deemed as trespassing or could be
deemed as not being the right thing to do and they came back with a very philosophical
uh quote if the worst criminal in our society was somebody that wanted to explore old infrastructure
and take pictures then we'd probably live in a very healthy and good society and ever
since that point i've kind of lived by that as a rule of thumb we're not doing anybody any harm
we aren't putting ourselves in any more danger than what we would do um by going for other walks
wherever we would go um and that leads me to the next conversation again how dangerous are tunnels
if you have a look at some of the walling over there you think that's ridiculously dangerous it's
got all kinds of supports inside it um bits of brick obviously falling here but my assumption is
that's largely down to um kids and you know it's being held up by a pillow wide of about four
four or five bricks there but again it shows you the integrity of the tunnel
um even withstanding the significant damage
so i've tried to paint this picture of how tunnels aren't dangerous i've tried to paint
you this picture of how the structures despite being years and years old are completely fine
so as i entered Mapperley tunnel i'm very much aware that the picture holds true for every tunnel
that i've ever entered air quality would of course be my main concern but in a brick lined
well ventilated tunnel the main thing you really need to worry about is your footing
all that said mapperley tunnel does pose one small risk that most tunnels don't in
fact not any other tunnel i've seen whether that risk poses immediate significant risk
to human life well i'll let you decide that when we get there around 550 yards
as i continue on foot i notice how foggy that it was becoming the beam of this torch is
normally pretty good but all it seemed to do was highlight the fog and not give any real sense of
the distance here a quick turnaround seemingly to check the entrance was still there it was
so many accounts of tunnels like this one are done with an air of haunting or spookiness or
the imminent danger that you face but for me this one was no different to the others the sheer size
and wonder of the tunnel the awe of the engineers and the navies that constructed its vastness they
leave my mind full of peaceful thoughts as i carried on my journey my mind kept getting
lost aside the odd occasion when i heard a noise at the mouth is there someone there
okay the reason i keep slowing up is because i keep hearing
and seeing lights down the end of that at the end of the tunnel i don't know if you
can see if i was showing the torch down there i think they're orange work lights
must be the workers onwards
there is a lot to see in the tunnel the refuges are plentiful including this one which has seen
more calcite deposits than i can recall seeing since grinkel tunnel in north yorkshire there is
also plentiful amounts of rail memorabilia coach buffers chairs sleepers you name it it's all here
onwards and my mind is once again thinking about how we could use
this this incredible victorian structure for the good of the community
just up on the hill there are sculptures and monuments which highlight how much went before
here in celebration of the local heritage and i can't help but think that if this was a viaduct i
was walking on now instead of in a tunnel it too would be celebrated here so why not this tunnel
waffle over one last check behind and i think we're soon approaching the stack
i've seen some sights in my time but this is something else
60 years of rubbish dumped down the second shaft of Mapperley tunnel
beyond the stack is infill and the remainder of the tunnel
let's turn back and head outwards and hope those construction workers aren't too close
so that was mapperley tunnel i'm back out and the cutting now back out in the open
thank goodness for that um and i really wanted to use mapperley tunnel as an example of what we do
and how we do it in what we think is a safe way we believe to be a safe way for us because
for us it's about logic it's about risk management and it's about five people being killed every
day on the roads every time you get in a car you could be one of five people who will die today on
the roads and tomorrow and the day after we love what we do we love exploring old infrastructure
so we take a a sensible logical look at the risk and are tunnels like that dangerous
no they're not even even the crumbling state of the the portal here the southern portal of
Mapperley tunnel with its beautiful tall parapets and the the weird graffiti of the guardians
is it dangerous no it's not it could do with a lot of love and attention um but is it going to
collapse and cause somebody some significant grief in my personal opinion no it's not
in terms of the other thing we wanted to discuss the the trespassing issue well again our rule of
thumb on this channel is we don't try and trespass and that's where the you know we want to be taken
seriously we want to be taken seriously as people that are giving historical vlogs and to do that i
think you need to come across with less of an urbex mind more of a historical presentation
and that's difficult to do if you're being stupid breaking into places climbing fences
is not the right thing to do if you want to be taken seriously we want to be taken seriously so
we try and respect people's property and
so i will leave you from the wonderful 1 100 yard mapperley tunnel probably not going to
be here much longer because just the other side of this embankment there's a lot of development
um so hopefully we've got some good pictures to show you as well i say good pictures we're not
photographers i'm not a photographer but anyway in the meantime i'm going to head back that way
i appreciate you watching appreciate you taking the time to click and look at this video if you
do click on subscribe because we do all sorts of videos like this abandoned railways a band
of cows old roots anything that sort of sticks in our net but um take care
you