I tend to spend far too much time gazing over old maps looking at the lines that
were and the lines that came after, the rails, the roads, the old routes,
sometimes something catches the eye which doesn't seem quite right though
a tunnel a tunnel to the isle of Wight
Just over there is the Isle of Wight and it said
if you want to cross this stretch of water by boat it's the most expensive per mile on the planet
But the map said tunnel so clearly that was built
and perhaps i can maybe be there within 20 minutes depending on where you are on
the mainland it's only between one and three miles from here to there
so what exactly went wrong why does this map from the early 1900s show tunnel
To answer that question we need to give a little bit more context and head further back in time
let's go back to 1873. Now railway mania had reached every corner of the UK
as had the prospect of digging underground through the landscape building tunnels
even if that meant underwater the first mention i can find of any tunnel to the Isle of Wight is in
the Hampshire Telegraph from the 22nd of November 1873 an adventurous railway project was about to
take place and measures were being undertaken to test the practicability subscription has now
been made to sink a shaft west of Eagle Hurst now Eagle Hurst is around about two miles up the coast
from Lepe however there is something a little bit closer down towards lepe at what used to be called
stone point now on the coast there is stone point there's also a small wood behind the coastline
called "pits wood" i doubt that's any relation to a pit as such but they did dig a 150 foot
shaft down into the soil across the water within a month another shaft or bore was dug out here
just the immediate west of eagle house there still remains there today the water quality here was so
good as with absolutely no salt water intrusion that they wanted to sink some more shafts here and
supply water to the Isle of Wight in fact not only was the water quality so good there but also the
soil the clay that they dug into the stiff blue clay in their eyes meant that the tunnel could
be self-supporting with two shafts dug Mr foulton had everything he needed to draw up his expensive
and extensive report. For another few years there was absolutely no mention of these original shafts
and more importantly the progress thereafter it wasn't however until 1883 when things took
a completely different direction on the east side of the estuary here at stokes bay a fresh
proposal had come to light a number of business owners were back in the idea of this new location
so why here why no mention of stone point over on the east side
by leap the promoter of this particular project was Mr George Wells now he approached
the contractors of the mersey tunnel recently built with a unique scheme
different probably isn't the right word but it did have the backhand of lord
Wolesley the route would take a tunnel under here at stokes bay and head directly for ride pair
now as tunnels go that's not completely out there
what was different about this project is it was going to have a fortification halfway across it
now if I read the plans in the newspaper reports correctly there was going to be an underground
halfway point which would act as a form and according to lord Wolesley this was supposed to be
the strongest fort in the world once again though after 1886 this completely dried up
no fault and more importantly no sign of a shovel being lifted
We are just south of Brockenhurst now Brockenhurst station if you were here
in 1888 there would have been three different routes south of the station
now the third proposed tunnel for the Solent in 1900 would have changed the
face of Brockenhurst station forever because it meant a fourth route south.
so just climbed up this embankment here which was the Southampton to Dorchester
railway i think this one came first just back across there's the more modern one still in
use which went down to Bournemouth looks like a lovely track bed here, so lets take a look.
plans for this tunnel were said to be much more thorough and it was said to have
backers of of local influence clearly local businessman with a lot of money to spend
now one of the plans for the tunnel itself was a method of construction it was going to have
almost tube like concrete sections placed within it perhaps a little bit like what we've seen in
the the channel tunnel uh an example of which is first used i think are tested in Blisworth
canal tunnel so maybe this was a little bit of a glimpse into the future of tunnel building
it took a further year for things to heat up,
the backers were named and the construction method was set things were about to kick off
now the tunnel was set to be 2 miles and 500 yards long so that's a mile or so under the actual
seabed leaving around about a thousand yards either side for clearance to get under the sea
April 1901 and the Isle of Wight observer reported that tunnelling started here on the mainland at
keyhaven marshes it's also worth mentioning that despite the general positivity on the island
about the tunnel and the prospects it would bring it also brought a little bit of negativity in
fact one of the promoters reported that it goes without saying that the proposal which
friends to revolutionize the isle of Wight must involve some infringement with other interests
one such objector to the line here was the London Brighton south coast railway
presumably because London southwestern railway would be running the trains here
there was also quite a strong objection by the townsfolk of Ryde in august the
19th copy of the Isle of Wight press they made their displeasure very very clear
so as we sit here at the the site of the third tunnel attempt to get across to the Solent at
key haven marshes it's very beautiful here ironically we're looking across
to our right at the the Isle of Wight ferry crossing there and we're wondering what happened
to all the newspaper reports after April 1901 what happened to all the engineering works here well
we don't know come the middle of 1901 the newspaper report was just completely died of death
and there was nothing other than a report in the Bournemouth echo September 1901 which
detailed that there was rumour of engineering difficulties here that's it there's nothing
else we can find on this third attempt at a a crossing thereafter to the Isle of Wight
From that point forward there are seemingly mentions of the Solent tunnel once every
decade thereafter in fact as we speak the Solent freedom tunnel has raised twenty four thousand
of a hundred and twenty five thousand needed to work feasibility study so from all the research
that we've done in this project which was a heck of a lot I can assure you those are the three most
interesting tunnel attempts and certainly the earliest that we can find I mean it does seem
that the Isle of Wight is destined to remain in its truest sense certainly in our lifetime an
island um well thanks for watching that hopefully you enjoyed the little production there um if you
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week you