Victoria Tunnel Visit - Mar 15, 2022
As we are learning about the impact of WW2, we visited the Victoria Tunnel. Although it was originally built as a tunnel to transport coal from the Spital Tongues’ pit to the River Tyne during the Victorian era, during WW2, it was used as an air raid shelter for the people that lived in the Ouseburn area of Newcastle (many of whom did not have a garden for an Anderson shelter or enough space for a Morrison shelter). It was fascinating inside being 25m beneath the town centre- as well as scary when we switched the lights off to experience a blackout.
As well as the trip into the tunnel, we actually experienced ‘living history’ as we spoke to Basil, who was evacuated as a 10-year-old during the war. he was sent to live with a lady called Mrs Little in the Durham countryside. He told us all about life as a children during the war and about things they experienced – like rationing and running to air raid shelters in the middle of the night.
