Urbex - Old Warden Tunnel
So with the weather fine and three of us at an apparent loose end we decided it was about time we did a bit of urbexing, having googled-earthed the place that I'd been obsessing about finding having read about it online years ago we realised that it was within 15 minutes drive of where we were, so armed with a camera and a GPS unit we tumbled into Steve's car and made our way to the Old Warden Tunnel...
The Tunnel was built as part of the Midland Railway connecting Bedford with Hitchen, and from there to London between 1853 and 1857 and survived the Beeching cull only to be closed year later due to lack of traffic. History lesson over, it goes to say that this Tunnel is old, and has lain derelict for over forty years, from the very little information available online we knew it was either in good condition and open to access, or that it was in poor condition with no access, you've got to love the internet for providing consistently useful information... there was only one way to find out.
On arriving at the site we found that one: google-earth's latitude and longitude are out, and two: that it was clear that Jeans were going to be essential because of the stinging nettles, after a trek from the road down a track we found that unlike many urbex sites this one was sign-posted.
What the signage doesn't tell you is that after a short trek through the brambles and the nettles you come across a lovely view toward the Cardington Sheds, a view that if you've ever watched those magnificent men and their flying machines will be strangely familier less the Bedford power station which has since been demolished and had a rather large housing estate built on it.
Having stopped to admire the view we pressed on taking the rather steep trail, which is most definitely slipperly in anything but stunning weather, having negoiated it we found ourselves stood in the deep but wide railway cutting.
And there it was... the tunnel portal, swathed in weeds, and what on closer inspection turned out to be the wreckage of not one but two cars which appeared to have fallen, or more accurately, to have been thrown over the parapet.
To our great delight we noticed that at some point the tunnel had been bricked up and subsequently by someone at some point been broken in to leaving a hole in the northern portal wall big enough for all three of us to wriggle through
And once in... all I could say was 'wow': the tunnel was cold, really cold: there was a distinct temperature change the minute you climbed through the hole, and other than the remains of the wall where the hole had been punched through the tunnel was reasonably clean, this being rural bedfordshire and with the location requiring some exercise to reach it appeared to be generally out of reach of the less salubrious types. Structurally the tunnel looked sound for something so old and the classic elongated barrel roof (for steam engines) seemed to be in extremely good order, despite the floor being a little rocky it didn't appear that any of what littered the floor had come from above, which was a relief for all
It was at this point that Dave pointed out to Steve that we had neglected to bring a torch, as silly as this may sound I put it down to us all working in metric and 882 yards (the length of the tunnel) sounding deceptively short, we pressed on regardless however, with the light of the northern portal shining in behind us, and the light of the southern portal immediately ahead of us.
The tunnel however is deceiving, it's perfectly straight along it's entire length, and for those who don't work in yards, 882 is half a mile, and that light at the end didn't seem to get any closer. The echo's in the tunnel were amazing as well, with even whispers and hushed voices returning multiple echos that seemed to last forever. We didn't raise our voices, not wanting to disturb any local fauna, or indeed disturb the structure itself, although I dare say the tunnel has many years left in it yet.
Having gone just about as far as the light from the northern portal lasts we realised that with the light from the other end still a meer speck on the tunnels horizon we would soon be in complete darkness, and with only camera LCDs and Flashes lighting the way it would have been silly to press further, especially as we were unsure of the drainage within the tunnel and the last thing any of us wanted was to fall 4ft into a drainage adit, as many tunnels of this era had running directly down the centre of the tunnel, or occasssionally each track.
We made a somewhat overly hasty retreat from the beckoning, but undoubtedly eerie darkness with the plans to tackle the tunnel with a flashlight!
Above... just inside the portal, detail of the moss around the grate, the tunnel portal head from the inside, the sheer vastness of the darkness and finally some graffiti (one of only a few bits in there, not done by me... I'm not that sort of visitor.
back again... armed with a flash light
So back with a flash light and cameras with better batteries we pressed once again along the track, down the bank, through the hole and into The Old Warden Tunnel: Treading carefully we pushed on into the dark, checking for drains and admiring the brickwork, occasional graffiti and the general infrastructure of the tunnel, from research we knew there were no air vents along the route so the water coming through the roof could only be seeping through the brickwork, something that'll eventually be the downfall of the place, in time quite literally!
It was obvious that this wasn't some chav-infested urbex, any evidence of visitors rapidly diminished once out of the immediate light of the northern portal and we were left with only the impressive brickwork to look at, that an the occassional dead mattress perhaps left from the parties that were apparently held in the tunnel shortly after it's closure.
The further we got into the tunnel the damper it appeared to be, you could at times see your breath, and it was soon obvious why, we came across the first drain, not the 4ft deep man-hole-less hole we feared, rather a rubble filled frame in the floor, solid looking, but we weren't going to jump on it to find out. It was obvious in places that water seepage was dripping through the roof, but there weren't the tell tale pops in the dark of falling water, so one can only assume the water ingress is slow and as such nothing worth worrying about.
Having made our way to what seemed some way into the tunnel it was clear that we were now in the pitch dark and the light at the other end seemed no nearer, and it was at this point that we all started to realise that the torch, which seemed to have been fully charged was starting to dim, it seemed as if we would be thwarted again, and with the light not too long off beginning to fail outside the tunnel it seemed foolish to continue, so with one last blast of photographs we made our way back to the northern portal.
Above... Cool Scary Graffiti, The Roof by dying torch light, Backfilled Drain and finally Dead Mattress.
So defeated again, this time by a torch which on inspection back at the house seemed to be working just fine, we can only assume that the humidity in the tunnel (which with further research we've found out can occasionally cause white-out style fogs!) got to the torch, but; as for the second time that day we made the steep climb up the embankment back to the car, we've swore we were going to go back, but next time with a waterproof torch to make it all the way to the southern portal.
Above... the northern portal, the view of the portal from the trail up the embankment, more danger signs and the headwall roof of the northern portal, your first, and last view of the tunnel.
So we will be back, and there will at some point soon be some more photos once i've had the SLR film developed, as being the sort who wants to record everything I took two camera's just in case... so there we are, The Old Warden Tunnel, explored, but not yet conquered.