The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-04-02 00:00:00

UNDER THE THAMES.

The new tunnel under the Thames, which but three
years ago was laughed at as an idle scheme, and con.
demned as a wanton waste of money, is ready for public
use, and will be turned to practical purposes when one
or two necessary formalities have been complied with.
Mr. Barlow the engineer of the work, has kept his
promise to finish the undertaking in a year, and within
the cost of £113,000. The nature of the scheme and its
progress have been described from time to time.
Without ceremony numerous privileged visitors on
Tuesday " inaugurated " the traffic. A little beyond
the Inland Revenue office on Tower.hill an exaggerated
kind of iron sentry-box, rising apparently out of
the waggons and carts which are occasionally
clustered on this historical eminence, guided the
stranger to the spot of which he was in quest.
A small, open-mouthed crowd, mostly of the genus
ragamuffin, pressed around the liveried sentinel to
whom the gates of the dark abyss were entrusted.
Some of the gentlemen who had been provided with
tickets approached timidly, heard the rattle of the
machinery, glanced nervously at the black pit which
they would have to descend, and hastily retreated. It
need hardly be added that these touching exhibitions of
anxiety were ludicrously groundless. Indeed, should the
Subway turn out to be as financially prosperous as it is
safe and easy, the shareholders will pocket a handsome
dividend. The mysterion-looking thoroughfare admits
of a very brief description. It is a well-constructed
tubular iron bridge, about a quarter of a mile long, and
seven feet in diameter, sunk bodily into the bed of the
Thames, so as to be snugly embedded in the London
clay through its entire distance. Nowhere is the Sub-
way nearer than 22 feet to the water, and in places it
is as much as 50 feet distant—an important fact to bear
in mind in comparing the Subway with the old Thames
Tunnel, over the archer(' ern of which thee were here and
there but four feet to the water. The Subway, in pointof
fact dips at the rate of one in thirty. At present the
Tower-hill station at the one end, and the Tooley-
street Station at the other, are more useful than orna-
mental, especially when the cage by which passen-
gers are taken down is at the bottom. We use the
word " cage " because of its resemblance to that
familiar object of the mining districts, but it is in
reality rather a nicely padded little apartment, semi-
circular in shape, and with cushioned seat for four or
six. Into this the passenger enters, and the doors are

shut. There is a rumble, a rattle, a consciousness of
steady downward motion, and an intention perhaps to
remark to your neighbour that it is all very pleasant,
but any such reflection is nipped in the bud by the
termination of the journey, which has occupied about
the time it would take to count a dozen. The dis-
tance is only fifty feet. Through a small waiting-
room you enter a long low carriage!, with seats for
seven each side. The signal is given, the drum
begins to revolve, and the wire rope twines swiftly
round it, the pretty omnibus answers to the strain, and
in about 60 seconds the subterranean passage of the
Thames has been accomplished. Safety is secured in
the shafts by an unusually powerful clip; in the
Subway by the single line of tramway upon which col-
lision is impossible. We (correspondent of Daily News,
from which we are quoting) walked through the narrow,
dark, road on Tuesday, absolutely dryshod, and with-
out any inconvenience from defective ventilation. At
times, a listener in the centre of the Subway can hear
strange noises, said to be the reverberations of paddles
beating the river overhead, and the sounds of hammer-
ing and thumping on board vessel. This Subway is
important, as the establishment of a principle which
may exercise a powerful influence upon our metro-
politan locomotion. There is even reason for believing
that before long it will be applied up and down the
river to an extent but little imagined just now. The
Tower-hill fares at present are fixed at a penny and
twopence, but they will probably have to be reduced
by one-half.

While sinking the shaft in Tower-hill, in March last
year, the workmen at a depth of about 14 ft. t close the
surface, and beneath what was evidently the remains
of an ancient road, came upon a pile of old silver coins.
They were all lying together, as if they had been
buried in a bag. The soil above had been removed and
carted away before the coins were seen, and there is
every reason to believe that a considerable number went
away with the rubbish. The earth above the coins
was all made ground, and contained a few bones and
antlers of deer, and also a large quantity of
brass pins, at about eight feet from the surface. The
coins, were, of course, at once claimed as treasure
trove by the Solicitor to the Treasury. They were
found in an excellent state of preservation. They
were all of what is called among numismatists the
long cross coinage of Henry 111., and appear to have
been struck in almost all parts of England, Scotland,
and Ireland, for there were some marked with the
Dublin Mint sign; the Scotch are those of Alexander
111. All these the Treasury claimed, but as great
care has been taken in collecting them, it was officially
intimated that those not wanted for the British
Museum would be returned to Mr. Barlow, the
engineer of the works. A year of correspondence has
elapsed since then, and there is no return of the curs
plus coins.