the mason tunnels

i live in england in a county called northamptonshire and recently i have become aware (mainly by sniffing around a bit) that there is a network of tunnels beneth the town i live in.
the tunnels seem to link up important buildings and are rumourd to be greatly related to the masons.

from my ametuer attempt at detective work i am sure i have worked out the situation of sevral tunnels and even where they run to and from.

i first found out about these tunnels when i was a teenager and the towns main church was near a public garden we all used to hang out in. on the other side of that garden was an old house that had been desertd for years.
so one day we all went exploring the old house, a few of us turned back because the enviroment wasnt pleasant, but some of my friends and i carried on searching the house.
it didnt take long to find the basement so we decided to search it. in the basement was a bath tub, bits of old wood and general junk. one thing stood out in that room though. a door, wooden and carved into the front was a face. it was hard to tell if the look on the face was carved to look odd or if the toll of time had made it distorted.

upon opening the door we found a long tunnel and using only our lighters we made our way down it. there was a door about halfway down the tunnel but we kept on going untill we came to another door. the door was locked but the only thing that could of led to was the church.

some other thing i have found out is that the councill have been denied the right to build in certain bits of land in the town centre, i presume this is because of foundations making cave ins.
there is a door in the basement of a very popular pub which the pub manager is not allowed to open. if she does the tenancy agreement has been broken. i believe this is the opening to another tunnel.
there is an abandoned cinema in my town that despite the council being desprate for land to build flats is still left standing. photographers have broken inside the cinema but none have gone down as far of the basement because of a rancid smell, so i think i can presume that is another entrance to a tunnel. what makes the cinema even wierder is that they will not take any quotes for companys to buy it even though the building is in terrible shape and would probably be worth more as second hand building materials.

Very interesting, wish I was there or there was something like that here (if anyone knows of suspicious tunnels to explore near Sydney, let me know).

Can you take a video down through the tunnel you went into ? Maybe a pic of the face on the door, someone may know what it is. You will probably come across a lot of dead ends & locked doors, but you may get lucky. Check around the doors etc for fresh footprints/signs of disturbance etc

and while you're at it post them too so we can see some evidence

Where I live, the village church has underground tunnels, an old escape route, that just came out in a field. Sadly they blocked up all the entrances/exits years ago, so I never got to go through them. That's very cool that you got to poke around.

In the main town, our crown and magistrates courts, judges lodgings, cathedral, police station, prison, council buildings and others like that are all linked by tunnels, although I'm told that some are blocked up now. Some of the tunnels were blocked because they now lead to buildings that were sold on to businesses, others because of risks like asbestos, or weak reinforcements. There is an emergency shelter underground too, and there were rumors that it connected to central London by an underground railway, but I never saw any proof.

Recently some friends have been poking around looking for cold war shelters. They found a few small abandoned ones, but the rumors are that our town had one of the large control center ones for this area. No one has found it yet though, even after many hours on the maps, and wandering in fields.

I've never heard rumors involving the Masons in the main town network, although there is a lodge close enough that it could be one of the connections.

It would not surprise me if the Masons were involved in making these tunnels, as they were often the ones who built the buildings like churches, cathedrals, and other important buildings, but I don't particularly believe in any Masonic conspiracies, apart from the occasional local corruption.

Tunnel networks of these kind seem to be common in most towns and villages across England, some very historical, some more recent (cold war era especially). They all seem to come with their own rumors too, some more fantastic than others.


[edit on 25/7/2010 by harpsounds]

reply to post by toxicated5


Interesting. Here's another tunnel system in England, but it's not Masonic.

Williamson Tunnels

The Williamson Tunnels consist of a labyrinth of tunnels in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, England which were built under the direction of the eccentric businessman Joseph Williamson between the early 1800s and 1840. They remained derelict, filled with rubble and refuse, until archaeological investigations were carried out in 1995. Since then excavations have been carried out and part of the labyrinth of tunnels has been opened to the public as a heritage centre.

And it looks like these kind of stories are popular throughout the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.

Ley Tunnels

Ley tunnels are a common element of the local folklore tradition in the United Kingdom and they also occur in Europe. In Norwegian a ley tunnel-like passage is called a "lønngang" (lønn = "hidden / secret", and gang = passage) and in Swedish a "lönngång". Ley tunnels are said to physically link together prominent places such as country houses, castles, churches, ancient monuments and other, often medieval, buildings.

Legends about the existence of ley tunnels involve usually improbably long subterranean passages, sometimes running under major obstacles such as rivers and lakes to reach their destinations. Religious buildings, monks and the landed gentry are a particularly common element in many of the ley tunnel stories.

It is unlikely that many of the recorded ley tunnels exist physically, for this is a characteristic of their very nature; their significance lies in why so many similar legends of Ley tunnels have arisen and in their connection with the more esoteric notions of channels or paths of earth energy, etc.

I'm pretty sure I know something about this.

I have a friend who was once comissioned to clean one of these underground 'rooms' in the city of Manchester, England. According to him, every major city in England (not sure about the rest of the world) has a system of underground tunnels and rooms that were used as bomb shelters during the second world war. Apparently, since buildings have been built above most of the shelters, the network of tunnels now connects major buildings.

It's quite masonic: The theory is certain high ranking members of law enforcement, healthcare, finance, etc. have secret keys to the secret doors to the secret tunnels and use them to easily travel around town. I was also told there are usually two hidden entraces in public places.

As I said, this is most major English cites. I believe America has a similar system in place in the event of Nuclear fallout (Has it not been proven that Washington, for example, has an underground tunnel network?). Still, I don't know if this helps to explain YOUR underground tunnels at all, as you live in a smaller town. Let us know if you find anything else out. Try researching local history?

Regards from a fellow Brit.


Also, this is my first post on ATS! Woop!

reply to post by toxicated5


Thanks for the tread. This is fascinating stuff.

Originally posted by UKGuitarist
It's quite masonic: The theory is certain high ranking members of law enforcement, healthcare, finance, etc. have secret keys to the secret doors to the secret tunnels and use them to easily travel around town. I was also told there are usually two hidden entraces in public places.

Hey, welcome to ATS!

I don't want to get too much into the details, but I can tell you for certain the ones in my town are accessible at least in part to law enforcement. They were/are sometimes used to transport prisoners between the police station/prison and the courts. They weren't secret keys, they were/are regular security swipecards. I would imagine that they could travel freely between all the major buildings in town that are still unblocked though if they have a high enough access level.

I once worked for one of the institutions I mentioned in my post, and used to go through one small section of the tunnels, just between two buildings, when it was raining. I never dared to actually go looking around though, as the swipecard system registered what doors you had opened or attempted to open. The section I went through was just like a regular corridor pretty much, nice painted walls. The only weird thing I noticed was the doors in the corridor were not flush with ground level, they all had a gap from the floor to the start of the door of a few inches. I'm a little worried about saying anything more than I know to be public record, due to OSA, but I will say I never saw or had confirmed anything mind blowing, it was all the kind of thing you would expect and guess anyway.

[edit on 25/7/2010 by harpsounds]

tbh most cities in england have tunnels under them for all sorts of reasons one of the main ones was an old law which if something did not travel above ground , eg wine , beer , it did not attract tax, then add victorian engineering , canals , rail , military, civil defence and they add up...

I have a suspicion that some of these tunnels that link to churches are a result of the old medieval right to sanctuary within the churches.

eg; if the villagers wanted to kill the lord of the manor, he could be safe if he was within the church (given sanctuary).

Here is a little piece about the Northampton tunnels

Sorry, but not so sinister after all.

Edit to say that the reference at the bottom of that article is well worth a look as well.

Also to say thanks to the OP because although I lived very near that area for many years I knew nothing about these.

[edit on 25/7/2010 by PuterMan]

hey, i also live in northampton and was told there were tunnels underneath the town. Didn't think anything of it and especially didn't expect someone to mention it on here. I know the old cinema , its the Jesus Army centre now. I was just wondering where this house you went to is? i feel some exploration coming on

I love this kind of stuff and wish we have it in the US. But why in this forum?

Originally posted by scooterstrats
I love this kind of stuff and wish we have it in the US.

Boston's Beacon Hill is littered with tunnels. Some of which were most certainly used by the Masons who resided there and were involved with the Revolution.

Sounds like escape tunnels in case of war.
You should ask a council member or some historian what they were built for.
What have the Masons got to do with this? you mentioned a Church..

There are old tunnels under Worcester that were apparently used to store barrels of wine and other goods and transport them to and from the river.
King Charles 1st also fled through them after his defeat in the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

My mother used to work in one of the buildings near the Cathedral and has told me about how she used to have to go into the buildings basement to retrieve and photocopy old vellum documents. She said that there were several bricked up archways which were entrances to the tunnels. Those are the only entrances I am aware of for certain, although I think there is at least one bricked up on the path alongside the river, and another in the Cathedral Gardens.
I assume most of the other buildings in the arc alongside the Cathedral also have entrances.

Englands full of tunnels!!

Northamptons tunnels run all across the town/city under all the pubs and im sure if you speak to the landlords, I remeber the pub oppisite the station the landlord was talking about the tunnels, im sure they would be more than happy to show you around as they are quite famous.
I was working recently at the theatre with the rocky horror tour, but as all tour companys work all the crew/actors love the drinking i always end up getting sidetracked.

Here 2 site you would ALL love

www.subbrit.org.uk...

and

www.28dayslater.co.uk


all have great underground sections.

Personally I want to explore the City under London if anyone has the heart to show me!!!
friends of friends who are graffiti artists have wanted to take me down as they know all the acceess points. one day....

Edit- www.urbexforums.co.uk...

not the tunnels you was a after, but a start if you fancy an exploration.
Urban exploration is really big at the moment, TBH i been doin it for years before i even knew about a movement



[edit on 7-8-2010 by outcrysoundsystem]

There are even tunnels under the capital of the US, truth be told. I saw a documentary once where they brought cameras down into them and were told that if they went too far in any direction that they could get shot by federal guards. Pretty neat stuff, and considering most of the founding fathers were masons, they were probably created around then for the same purposes as the ones made in other places.

Yes there are lots of Mason tunnels. Like in South African parliament buildings right to the local Masonic lodge. So guys can get to lodge from work. Lodges in Germany have secret passages and tunnels out due to Hitler and his persecution of Masons.

reply to post by SNAFU38


the house was demolished about 5 years ago and had flats built on it.