Thursday 17 November 2011

SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGEWAY UNCOVERED

We're used to seeing holes in the ground, but this is ridiculous!      It's almost in the middle of the car park!       Or rather, it was.     For as part of the work at present being done to our Lymington site, the opening has now been sealed with heavy concrete T-beams packed together and tarmacked over.      Whatever the purpose of the underground brick walls on either side of the opening, they are relatively modern.      It's the dark space beyond them which is so intriguing, for although it may have been used for other purposes in recent times, it was almost certainly part of the late medieval smugglers' tunnel which stretched up behind the High Street so that contraband could be moved to the Angel or to other parts of the town, and may well have been used in penal times to shelter missionary priests starting on their dangerous way to service the Catholic faithful in different parts of the country.

1 comment:

Gigi said...

Aside from the obvious health and safety concerns, it almost seems a shame to fill in and cover over a piece of history like this. I prefer the idea of a priest's tunnel, given the valiant origins of this little church. I'm just discovering that there are a few of them around Sussex, either leading from chapels or to priest holes in large Elizabethan dwellings. I wonder where the tunnel under the carpark of OLMSJ leads to? Surely not the confectionery counter in Tesco! :)