The Priory Tunnels
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-05-11

There are networks of tunnels under Streatham and Tooting. They run between the old sanatoriums, so that crazed inmates could roam freely without disturbing the sane living in the normal, healthy hustle and bustle above.
This isn’t true.
Inspired by schoolyard mythologies, local hearsay and archival materials sourced from local heritage centres, The Priory Tunnels present a series of interwoven historical narratives and local lore from the Tooting Common area. This is a satellite project within my current PhD research exploring the use of narrative illustration as a transferable social research methodology. This body of work explores the use of visual storytelling to document an alternative interpretation of our everyday surrounds. As a native Londoner, local lore features predominately in my previous research and practical work with the intention of questioning how and why local communities preserve specific knowledge. Rather than the grand historical narrative, it has always been the personal and immediate that has compelled me, the anecdotal, vernacular or unofficial story. Far from the practice of the formal historian, it is not the rigour of accuracy that captivates but the muddles that ensue from the converging of fact and fiction as details distort through continual recounting; this is ‘history’s nether-world — where memory and myth intermingle, and the imaginary rubs shoulders with the real.’ (Samuels, 1999:6)
An exploration of the marvellous within a seemingly mundane setting, The Priory Tunnels draws together stories of underground tunnels, a Victorian murder mystery, the disputed existence of a C14th priory and recently deceased local resident infamous Cynthia Payne.

Mireille Fauchon, Kingston University, www.mireillefauchon.com