Tunnel Vision

Bored, bored, bored... University life in England over the lockdown period has been a ceaseless string of identical days. Wake up, breakfast, shower, commute across my room to my desk, online lectures, social media, online assignments, walk, Netflix, bed. Again and again and again. The suppressive quiet of my solo flat. AHHH, I'm going stir crazy in here, I've had more screen time in one day than a girl my age in the 1920's had in her lifetime.

But we don't want to settle with boredom, we persevere, constantly out on the search for new things to watch and read. One headline reads "Elon Musk Puts Own Tesla into Space" and another "Miracle Surgery Allows Paralysed Man to Walk". The future is so present in our lives, innovations, technology and progressions in medicine are plastered across every pixel. So it was surprising to come across a different sort of headline on one of my prescribed breaks. It went like this: "Crystal Clear Water and the Mark of the Monks". What could this mean? Well, I'll tell you, its been a few months now and this little secret has become the most exciting part of my lockdown experience. So here goes:

700 years ago, beginning around 1366 the monks of Austin Friars in Bristol began constructing a masterpiece of a water delivery system, The Temple Pipe. They'd negotiated the use of a spring from the local land owner Sir John de Gourney and so had access to clean, fresh water, but no way to transport it the 3 miles to their collection of houses and churches. Unlike modern religious institutions medieval monasteries were notable for engineering innovation, especially when it came to water. The first tunnel was constructed over the course of a few years and furnished the residents of Redcliffe and Temple with all the clean water they needed, with any excess being gifted to the local parishioners. For 500 years the conduit was maintained, extended and improved until in 1804 a section of the river Avon was diverted and blocked a section of the tunnel. Further construction projects in and around the area meant it was eventually abandoned and largely forgotten.

BUT the story doesn't end there, NO SIR! Enter 3 sets of youtubers, 4 newspaper articles and a bored student. After reading one of the articles on this fascinating sub-terraninan adventure opportunity I Whatsapped my friend Archie and we began our online investigation. Where is this thing? how do we get there? how do we get in? what's it like? After a while of fruitless searching we came across one very helpful Youtube video showing the entrance and the inside of the tunnel but no directions!! More Googling eventually led us to and an old map drawn up during a survey for the road that now flows over our secret river. We got in the car and went to do some reconnaissance.

We parked up and found a path down the side of the road where the map showed one of the entrances to be. Here's a condensed version of the series of events which ensued (in reality it took about 2 hours to find):

"If you look at the video there's a big silver industrial style fence."

"Yes but there are also a bunch of trees and greenery which aren't here"

"If that's the fence then where's the hedge?"

"Maybe they cut it down? that video was from 14 years ago"

"Oh my God Archie look at that wall it looks exactly like the picture"

"Okay hold my bag I'm going to climb over"

"We need to move these pallets out the way, give me a hand"

"Holy moly, we've found it!!!!!!!!!"

"Who's going in first?"

"I will"

I sat down and slid myself into the hole, put my head torch on and was just astounded. We'd only gone and FOUND IT!!! This was unbelievably exciting. The water was crystal clear and bizarrely warm, the air too was warm but not oppressive and smelled clean, slightly metallic and chalky. Archie climbed down after me. The tunnel was around 6ft tall and stretched off into the darkness, this was real tunnel vision. We started walking, splashing through the 4 inches of water in silent awe. I ran my had against a reddish brown wall, light scars of pale grey criss-crossed every surface. These were the marks of ancient chisels, each one representing the harsh blow struck by some nameless, faceless holy man. To be so close to something so old, to feel the same water glide quietly over my modern wellingtons, to light to way with LEDs not fire and put my hands against the same walls they did. It just felt so real.

This amazing secret, a place no-one had been in years, that people walk over and drive over every day, without a clue what's below them. We walked the full length of the tunnel, explored its forks and mysteries. The water rose and fell, we went up stairs, round corners, tripped on uneven rock, squelched through saturated sediment, crept past sleeping bats, ducked under low bits, waded through deep bits. And at one point turned off our torches and just stood in the most absolute dark silence I've ever experienced.

After about an hour and a half, satisfied with our thorough examination, we sploshed back to the entrance. Soaked, covered in mud and high on adrenaline we emerged back into the brilliant light of day. The world seemed so different, so weirdly normal, like we'd been in another dimension for that short time. Archie and I looked at each other beaming, what an adventure, what a secret!

Now I'm back in my normal routine, my three metre commute, my 7 cups of tea a day, my much improved typing speed. But now, when I'm bored or lonely, I think of those monks in the dark, the immense task of sculpting that lifeline one strike at a time. The hours of lonesome repetition, and that peaceful quiet. I'm now more inclined to appreciate my modern brand of quiet monotony and above all my crystal clear drinking water.