if you head down to south east england and go to a little town called tunbridge wells you'll find an
old abandoned railway that headed south and it weaves its way through the sussex countryside,
now a famous railway contractor once said if you're in the south of england
you're either on an embankment or you're in a cutting that's code for it being quite hilly
in a previous video we looked at all of the abandoned stations along that line which was
affectionately called the cuckoo line today is a little bit different we're gonna be looking
at all the abandoned tunnels along that line and everybody loves a good tunnel don't they
so the first tunnel of the day is grove tunnel now grove tunnel is situated pretty close to
sainsbury's car park in tunbridge wells and of course it's adjacent to tunbridge wells west
station this top section of the line wasn't closed until the mid-1980s
and what a spectacular station tunbridge wells west must have been
just beyond sainsbury's and between its west and central stations a sizable sandstone spur
stood in the way and it was deemed 183 yard tunnel of single ball was required
so grove tunnel um just beyond the straight or the slight curve at the end would just
beyond there is tunbridge well's main station and obviously the start of the cookie on come
through here single ball tunnel we're not going to get in there because it's extremely
wet and i haven't really got the waders today so um we're down with the boots behind you is
um on towards the spa valley railway and uh tunbridge wales west which is now kind of
sainsbury's car park and obviously the start of the spa valley railway um they're obviously set
up today because we've just heard a steam engine but we're not getting in there today on account
of the foot deep water and the wrong uh wader slash footwear right onto the next three tunnels
next up is argos hill tunnel which is quite a bit of art
it is um i would say it's unique but we have seen another tunnel like it in mid wales it sits under
the a267 and is probably better referred to as a skew bridge rather than a tunnel but who cares as
far as i'm concerned this is a 60-yard piece of infrastructure that should be celebrated
cool so this is a second attempted tunnel of the day second um success we know that mayfield a bit
further on doesn't exist but we're obviously trying to find where it was but um here we
are here's the alignment of the cuckoo line and that's clearly double board i don't know if um
two tracks actually went through it but it looks um wow pretty cool isn't it right so first
observations um just i mean they're not really recesses are they they're not really refugees
because the whole tunnel is lined yeah it's literally one after the other yeah every three
yards every two yards the tunnel is absolutely lined with a refuge it just it looks like a piece
of art doesn't it yeah really is something else it's amazing utterly utterly gorgeous
um i'm going to say 20 or 30 each side maybe 20 each side but it's only a 60 yard long tunnel um
and there's sort of 19 today and 19 each side no that was um and it's yeah really beautiful isn't
it
i mean in essence it's it's a bridge it's a long bridge i mean yeah it's a wide bridge it's it's a
tunnel it's clearly a tunnel but i you know you kind of think well if there wasn't a road over
the top originally when they built this back in 1880 then you kind of think this would just
be a fairly big cutting i wonder if they just thought you know what let's make it very strong
with all those arches inside which i presume would make it stronger um beautiful structure big stick
so mayfield tunnel next mayfield tunnel is no longer there it was completely destroyed by
the a-267 the tunnel itself was situated four miles or so north of heathfield and
just north of mayfield station instead all that now stands on its alignment is the a267
as a stark reminder that cars really did win the battle over the iron road here
in fact for at least half a mile the a267 runs along the exact course of the railway here
what let's see what somebody down he's got
oh it's a dog just sounds like a puma or something i thought i'd start when i first
walked past it but it says lab on the top i'm thinking labrador i don't know what the line is
we're just we're just coming down here trying to find an old viaduct we're over the railway
really keen to see this viaduct from below it looks very nice from overhead slightly off the
beam track which is code for trespassing but it would be good to get a decent picture it's very
steep i think we'll carry on going down the side of the environment first i don't think
anyone can see us there's a few houses just over there so we'll keep um moving quick
scrambled along the embankment i'm away from the house because the trap bed down there is clearly
someone's back garden um unbeknown to us at least they're using it as their back garden
and scrambled all along the embankment there and managed to find the violet
okay just conducting a small bit of trespass on account that i was really keen to see
a little over bridge or under bridge or river bridge on the main line so the line is there um
and i've identified on the map um a few old features such as things that go under
the railway so we're just sneaking across this field i can't see anybody that may
um have an issue with us across in this field it's grass there's no animals
but if i drop the camera start running we're in trouble
right so i'm looking down here and it's a bit vague but so i can try and point to it uh
there is a base to the bridge so this was built as a complete one unit
there's only a very small bridge
but nevertheless kind of cool i'm not going to get in there because it's quite deep
but there's another way to get down maybe the other side we might get a better view
right that's a negative because obviously it's all fenced over there
it looks like it uses some horse jumps
all right so there is the track bed back towards um eric very straight no gradient whatsoever there
and if i spin the camera around off into the other direction the lone tree that stands
right we're now set for Heathfield tunnel the heathfield tunnel goes from the north directly
south underneath the co-op and it's probably down here so huge steep embankment just there that's
a car park just there and we think we've already found the northern portal it always fascinates me
what lies beneath our feet and to think that every day hundreds of people busy themselves in this
very shop perhaps unknowingly that beneath them lies 140 year old tunnel the tunnel itself until
recently formed part of the cuckoo trail cycle route number 21 and as you can see by the side by
side map view it passes right underneath the front door of the co-op that stands above it today it's
just downhill here so it does almost go directly underneath the uh the co-op just behind us there
so this is 265 yards long i think that's what it said and it used to form part of the cycle route
until they decided to close it because the council stated anti-social behaviour yes apparently so
so i really noticed when they put that because you take somewhere like bath tunnels two tunnels and
bath which is very well managed looked after lit um there's no trouble in there whatsoever
you know they're like a mile long so why the places like here have decided that
a 200 yard long tunnel um is a big problem for the council to keep up it's ridiculous
notable things about a heathfield tunnel 265 hours long a little bit damp on the inside
but very very interestingly six bricks wide that's really really sort of heavily engineered
thank you very much for watching our little tunnel explorations this time and i hope you enjoyed it
indeed and of course if you did enjoy give us a thumbs up um subscribe of course because a lot
of you don't subscribe you just watch the videos so do click subscribe because that
helps us greatly um and of course if you want to help contribute to us making these
videos which would be hugely appreciated we've got a few options below patreon um
coffee whatever else and of course the youtube join button which gives you benefits to sort
of um extra videos pictures bits and pieces me and rebecca wafflin quite a lot waffle no
right um anyway until next time thanks for watching see you soon
you