The Friends of Drakelow Tunnels

Roger Bryan's Virtual Tour
Photos by Roger Bryan, comments by Paul Stokes

Back in 2001 Roger, aided from time to time by the rest of the team, set about the huge task of photographing the site from one end to the other. It was very fortunate that he did.
Locked securely away for over 40 years, slowly decaying away, were the remains of an almost unique U.K. WWII underground factory*. In 2008 the site's owners set about stripping it out for the scrap iron and steel. By the end of 2008 tunnels 1, 2, & 3 and all their interconnecting galleries had been stripped bare. Now, where there used to be the remains of a WWII underground factory are simply a set of empty tunnels that used to house a WWII factory. Thanks to Roger's foresight we still have a record of what it used to be like. There are literally hundreds of photos to sort through, scan and build into these pages, so this will be a long on-going task. The scans do not do justice to Roger's original prints, but they will offer an insight for those who never had the opportunity to see it all for real.
It is easier to follow the virtual tour in conjunction with the factory layout plan on pages 10 and 11 of Drakelow Unearthed (Revised Edition), or on Pages 8 and 9 of the original version.
Paul

On then to the first installment - Tunnel 1 and its galleries. The 4 main tunnels are parallel and aligned roughly East-West. We start at the Western end of Tunnel 1, where the entrance would have been.

TUNNEL 1

© 2009 J.R.Bryan

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