New UK Bicycle Tunnel offers a History Lesson

“A tonic for the nation.”  This was the slogan and hope of the 1951 Festival of Britain.  Held in the summer of ’51 throughout the UK, the festival was conceived as a way to give a lift to Britain’s people as they continued to rebuild following the Second World War.  The idea was to “promote the British contributions to science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts.”

The centerpiece of it all was the South Bank Exhibition located in Central London on the south bank of the Thames.  To make way for the exhibition a number of warehouses and scores of middle-class homes were demolished—much to the chagrin and dismay of the people who worked in the factories and lived in the homes.  The new and “improved” South Bank was transformed into the modern idea of urban design.  The principles of this nouveau building style included multi-level buildings, elevated walkways and the idea of leaving streets and roadways to automobile traffic and building separate routes specific to walkers and bike riders.  Today this form of urban planning is known as Industrial Modernist design.  The highlight of the South Bank Exhibition was the Dome of Discovery (pictured), a temporary structure built to house and display examples of the earth, the sky, the ocean, the polar regions, and more.  At the time it was the largest domed structure in the world.  It was later demolished and sold for scrap.  Today the site is part of a botanical garden near the London Eye.

South Bank was not alone in hosting the Festival of Britain, the rest of the country held events and sponsored projects themed to the ideals of the festival.  Two such towns were Howdon and Jarrow and together they built the Tyne Cyclist and Pedestrian Tunnel.  The tunnel is actually two tunnels in one, a ten foot wide pedestrian tube and a 12 foot in diameter bicycle tunnel.  The tunnels run for just about 900 feet in length and they sit about 40 feet below the River Tyne.  These tunnels were the first-ever to be built strictly for use by walkers and bike riders.  A unique feature of the tunnels are the escalators at each end.  Made of wood and still operational today, the escalators—at the time—were the highest vertical climb of any such apparatus in the world—85 feet.  The escalators were refurbished in 2011.  Each month approximately 20,000 people ride or walk through the tunnel.  

Fast forward to today.  On April 8 in Bath, England scores of bike riders were on hand for the ribbon cutting to open the Two Tunnels Greenway (pictured).  The all new greenway has two tunnels specific to walkers and bike riders.  The tunnels are part of a four mile stretch of the abandoned Somerset and Dorset Railway.  The greenway runs through the Devonshire tunnel in Bloomfield then through the second tunnel at Combe Down.  The Combe Down tunnel is over one mile in length making it the longest non-automobile tunnel in the UK.  In addition to the tunnels the greenway rolls over an old aqueduct.  It seems Industrial Modernism has returned to England.  

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