About 50 years ago in the vestry of St. John’s Church In Chichester a flag stone was taken up by some teenagers and a tunnel was revealed. Apparently it runs along under St Johns Street in a south / north direction
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An Archaeological Evaluation atRoussillon Barracks Chichester, West Sussex
Planning Reference No: CC/10/03490/FUL Phases 1a & 1b Project No: 4861 Site Code: RBC 11ASE Report No: 2011128 OASIS id: archaeol6-102472 By Diccon HartWith contributions by Sarah Porteus Illustrations by Fiona GriffinJune 2011
A number of those readers remembered a story about tunnels underneath Hansford Menswear, also in South Street, so we spoke the shop's owner to find out more Matthew Hansford described a blocked-off passage in cellar of the shop, which he believes may have led to the cathedral
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Old Barracks / Wellington Grange
FOOTBALL FIELD SURPRISE.
A singular happening lay behind the prosaic news on saturday that the
chuichester and District League football fixture, Summersadale VS Boxgrove, had o be postponed
owing to the ground on this hill suburb of Chichester being unfit.
One of the most common questions I’m asked about Peterborough’s history is whether there are any tunnels under the city. Local legends say that there is a tunnel stretching from the Cathedral to Monk’s Cave at Longthorpe. Similar tunnels are alleged to stretch from the Cathedral to the abbeys at Thorney or Crowland.
These are familiar myths in many historic cities across the UK, mostly urban legends based on half remembrances of sewers, cellars or crawlspaces, coupled with wishful thinking and rumour.
The stories of tunnels from Peterborough to
Historically, to build a house with a simple cellar you would dig out the ground to a depth of around 6ft, the cellar walls would have been constructed with a lining of stone or brick and with a drain for water within the cellar. The floors would have been built up on crushed stone or sand to provide a level surface and paved, usually with flags. Brick paving became more common in later periods.
First, there are no maps in the presentation to hidden tunnels , all information is in the public domain and if we get distracted during our searches that is only natural.
I will try and make this as interesting as possible and we will not be getting our boots dirty.
Why have a cellar?
Having a cellar was actually quite an expensive and a time consuming affair. Most people didn't. There was no point unless there was something to store or servants to hide.
AArc141/14/EVAL Roussillon Park, Broyle Road, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 BBL
Sporadic finds represent the early prehistoric period in the vicinity of the Project Site, with
the discovery of Palaeolithic axe in a garden on Brandy Hole Lane (c. 600m to the NW)
and a Neolithic stone axe, in the vicinity of Spitalfield Lane, over 1km to the SE (Lee 2008:
9).
Bronze Age activity has been recorded c. 500m to the east of the site, in the vicinity of
Garyiingwell Hospital, where evidence for settlement was identified along with remains of
six cremation burials (Lee 2008: 9).
Read more: ABSOLUTE ARCHAEOLOGY Rousillonn Barracks Evaluation
