Tunnel of Love

A Romantic night of Shafting


Ah February only two weeks to the 14th. If you're looking for an unusual Valentine's night a two stop journey on the Tube at Wapping might not be what you had in mind.

However on Valentine's Day, The Brunel Museum is organising guided journeys of the Thames Tunnel, by Tube, for lovers. By kind permission of a pandering London Underground, couples may see the smooth Doric columns, the deep recesses, the pilasters and porticos of the tunnelling Frenchman, Marc Brunel, Isambard's Dad. Here, before the trains came, were sixty shops with garters, silk handkerchiefs and lovers' tokens in the World's First Underwater Shopping Arcade. Here also at the Thames Tunnel Fancy Fair were novelty acts, sword swallowers and female acrobats, and dark places where lovers might talk until morning.

According to Robert Hulse curator of the Musuem and tour leader of this innuendo ridden trip "This is the ride of a lifetime for the Tunneller in your Life. The entertainers have long since gone, but tonight lovers alight from the train to stand, fingers entwined, gazes locked, and open mouthed at the foot of Frenchman Brunel's Wapping Shaft."

The Love Train leaves Rotherhithe at 7pm, 8pm, 9pm. This is the last
Underground Valentine Tour until 2011 because the East London Line closes in December 2007 for engineering works for the extension. Tickets cost £7 each or £10 a pair. For more details and to book online visit the Brunel Engine House Museum.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, February 01, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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