Our post today for VM_365 Day 91 comes from an exciting weekend field trip by the Trust and friends to the Ramsgate Tunnels.

The letters arranged on the wall at the entrance to the chalk passage are from the sign for the Tunnel Railway, as the complex of railway lines and stations came to known.

The site combines a significant experience of the industrial archaeology heritage of the Ramsgate area, with a site associated with the defences of the coastal region in the First  and Second World War. A complex of passages, cut into the chalk to create air raid shelters for thousands of people, encircle the town of Ramsgate and the Ramsgate Tunnels experience allows a long section of the air raid shelters to be explored.

Within the tunnels is preserved the record of the many amateur urban explorers who explored the tunnels while they were closed to general public access. The names, slogans and dates scribbled and painted on the walls show how the Ramsgate tunnels remained in the consciousness of local people, their fascinating history waiting to be brought to life as a very popular public attraction.