Reigate Castle Tunnel
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Reigate Castle Tunnel by Marathon as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Reigate Castle Tunnel
Image: © Marathon Taken: 9 Sep 2012
Reigate Castle Tunnel, constructed under the grounds of Reigate Castle in 1823, is believed to be Europe's first road tunnel. It is around 55 yards long, bored through sandstone, and was used by vehicular traffic as recently as the 1970s as part of the A217. Ian Nairn in "The Buildings of England Surrey" pointed out that it always made a dramatic entry for southbound traffic arriving in the centre of the town, whereas in the 1970s before it was finally shut to vehicular traffic it was one-way northbound only. Traffic in Reigate now goes round a one way system, of which Castle Mound forms the centre, and the tunnel is reserved for pedestrians, making a short cut from the town centre to the station. This is the view of the northern end from the cutting leading to it as dusk is falling.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.238751
Longitude
-0.205898