Oxford is an ancient city, full of mystery and magic and moaning myrtles haunting the corridors that history’s favourites strolled along centuries before. What usually gets forgotten is that the more than 1000 year old city doesn’t just include the phallic protrusion of Christ Church or that maelstrom of knowledge the Bodleian.
Most forget that during the height of the Reformation, European cities were strewn with a honeycomb of subterranean highways, the like of which would give Indiana Jones epileptic orgasms. Not only did a wee bit of popery cause a bit of tunnely fun; after rapid expansion of the city in the Victorian era many streams were culverted over creating a network of underground streams lying not so far beneath the feet of most be-gowned scholars milling about doing their shopping.
In the post-exam euphoria of 9th week in the most delightful of Oxford terms, one of these tunnels was burrowed into by two intrepid explorers in search of cheap thrills, armed with a brace of wellies and a spangly headtorch.
Entering the breach was not the easiest of tasks, as locating the mouth of the tunnel took a good bit of “Enemy of the State” style googlemapbashing until eventually the beginning of our adventure was found. After packing a bag of supplies, and what can only be described as a paranoid collection of first aid supplies, we headed for the entrance. After a tiny amount of apprehensive hesitation we lifted the cap on the bottle of fizz crackle and FUCK THAT’S A BIG SPIDER.
We slid in, wedging ourselves between a rusting water lock and the dilapidated brickwork of the tunnel’s maw. After slipping around comically in the sludge resting gleefully in the bed of the tunnel we got our collective shit together and begun burrowing into the underbelly of Oxford. The first thing that we noticed was the patchwork inside of the tunnel; it appeared to be a mix of 50’s concrete, Victorian brickwork and old-school ivory stone. It looked like the tunnel had been formed by a slow accumulation of coverings over centuries to form roads and thoroughfares in the city centre.
Next was the abundance of gribblies. Expecting the odd rat, and possibly a Shelob or two, we didn’t anticipate the eerie appearance of a dark and sneering family of crustaceans. They resembled the kinds of things from children’s nightmares – coated with the mirky sludge of the tunnel with a slow movement that felt a lot like a macabre delight that they might be provided with a taste of “man-flesh”. After inspecting the blighters and moving on, we came to a big bend in the tunnel which plunged us into the artificial flare of the headtorch without the warm comfort of the summer sun beaming in from the entrance.
At this point the tunnel’s roof descended abruptly as if to dare us forward into the narrow and claustrophobic pipe. Crouching explorers, hidden spiders; the bar-stewards and their fiendish webs kept getting entangled in our hair providing that delightful spine-tingle. Brushing against the now irritatingly low ceiling, we came to a further barrier to our progress which looked like a stone boat submerged half way into the top of the tunnel. Now we were both fantastically soggy – our cut-price wellingtons filling up nicely.
After popping under the stone-boat the water began to rise dangerously, clearly the tunnel was having a laugh at our fear of wet gonads. At this point our adventure was cut short and we began our transition from our temporary Morlock existence. Pledging to return with an Argos dingy and waders like a pair of foolish Tooks we emptied the aquatic wildlife from our boots and left feeling entirely exhilarated.
A few months later, now armed with a snazzy inflatable kayak, the two Tooks returned to the tunnel in search of some good old dopamine. Despite the tunnel being slightly fuller with sludge and water than the first attempt, we eased ourselves in – which obviously ended up with wellies full of shit.
This time with a decent means of conveyance, we floated down the tunnel with ease brushing aside all those gribblies we saw from last time there. Now that we were floating above rather than wading through, we both got a good helping of spiders and flies in the gob, especially when half of them were swarming round the headtorches we were donning (see what I did there?)
We reached the weird stone boat thing we stopped at last time, and had to lie flat in the “Argos special” to get under it, but we did! At this point very committed, we hovered through further hearing the buzz of the city above and peering down various pipes and holes in the side of the tunnel, wondering what mysteries mice and troglodytian squirrels were discovering without us. About half the way down the tunnel we reached a point where we saw writing on the ceiling, some bros had scrawled their names next to “92”. Nice to think we were over a decade later! A secret of Oxford still devoid of tourists. Naturally we added our pawprints and then sauntered off feeling all Indiana-Jonesy.
Towards the latter end of the tunnel, the roof above us was mostly arches of brick, with the majority of the falling out! Despite the worrying niggle at the back of my mind (read claustrophobia), we headed on to hear a gaggle of gaffawing undergrads strolling through the quad we were now underneath. Take a guess which college.
After literally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we popped out at the end to a flock of bewildered tourists with the odd one cheering! We brushed ourselves off, gulped down some water and headed back home triumphant. Until the next subterranean adventure.
Outrageously Liberal 