• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Underground (Miscellaneous: Tunnels, Roads, Bunkers Etc.)

Last edited:
ghughesarch said:
I'm not sure why you would think that, there's quite a bit of chalk in the geology of Essex http://www.geoessex.org.uk/essex-geology/
Click to expand...
Well, there you go. A combination of ignorance and a memory lapse - I now recall there is some chalk around the Purfleet area. .

That diagram seems a bit oversimplified though - there are definite hilly outcrops in the Southend, Laindon (Langdon) and Billericay areas. And then there is the Essex Weald.

The near universal opinion of non-Essex people that the county is flat isn't true - as the builders of the Eastern Counties Railway discovered belatedly to their cost. Indeed the whole of Essex/East Anglia in general is lumpier then people think - their impression seems to be formed by the Fens, the Broads, and Canvey Island (of which latter I have fond memories).

However, back to dene holes - the Wikipedia article seems quite shallow and I was simply wondering if there was someone with an obsessive interest in them to expand on their provenance.
 
Last edited:
Idk if this story belongs here, i searched for s thread about living undergroing but couldnt find one, so feel free to relocate this if there is a more appropriate thread.

A group of French volunteers have left a cave, after spending 40 days living in isolation to study the effects and adaptability of the human body.
They lived without sunlight and with no clocks to test how people cope with losing their sene of time and space.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56875801
 
Last edited:
Souleater said:
Idk if yhis story belongs here, i searched for s thread about living undergroing but couldnt fint one, so feel free to relocate this if there is a more appropriate thread.

A group of French volunyeers have left a cave, after spending 40 days living in isolation to study the effects and adaptability of the human body.
They lived without sunlight and with no clocks to test how people cope with losing their sene of time and space.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56875801
Click to expand...

This was done almost 60 years ago. l can remember reading about it in Reader’s Digest in the Seventies (?).

“...Josie Laures (nicknamed Pothole Girl) and Antoine Senni, a woman and man who spent 88 and 126 days, respectively, in caves in the French Alps in 1965.”

https://gizmodo.com/humans-who-lived-in-caves-to-study-isolation-slept-for-1741583871

lt was done again in 1989 by:

“Stefania Follini...a...27-year-old Italian interior decorator...who lived 130 days alone in a sealed cave with no human contact.

In the absence of night, day or timepieces, Miss Follini's menstrual cycle stopped and her sleep-wake cycle changed radically. She tended to stay up 20 to 25 hours at a time, sleeping about 10 hours.

Researchers believe her muscle tone and the level of calcium in her bones is lower, that her immune system is depressed and that she is able to concentrate more deeply.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/24/us/after-130-days-of-cave-life-a-return-to-glare-of-the-sun.html

maximus otter
 
Beware of sinkholes in Rome.

Historic tunnels 'like Swiss cheese' under the city are filling with water and collapsing

When you're walking about the Italian capital Rome you're famously stepping on history wherever you go. But its citizens are having to be more careful where they tred - or drive - because in recent years the city has been dealing with a growing number of sinkholes - about a hundred every year. This has led the British paper, The Times, to call it the "sinkhole capital of Europe". Its reporter in Rome, Tom Kington, says the cause is a series of historic tunnels under the city "like a block of Swiss cheese" which have been filling more regularly with water because of ageing pipes and heavier rainfall. ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09k6bs5
 
ramonmercado said:
Beware of sinkholes in Rome.

Historic tunnels 'like Swiss cheese' under the city are filling with water and collapsing

When you're walking about the Italian capital Rome you're famously stepping on history wherever you go. But its citizens are having to be more careful where they tred - or drive - because in recent years the city has been dealing with a growing number of sinkholes - about a hundred every year. This has led the British paper, The Times, to call it the "sinkhole capital of Europe". Its reporter in Rome, Tom Kington, says the cause is a series of historic tunnels under the city "like a block of Swiss cheese" which have been filling more regularly with water because of ageing pipes and heavier rainfall. ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09k6bs5
Click to expand...
I saw a programme where Alexander Armstrong went to Rome and explored all of the old tunnels and mine workings under the streets of the city.
Here is the full programme

 
Last edited:
MorningAngel said:
Me again with another puzzle. We found this in our digging. We have found some things with a slight iridescent sheen but nothing like this. This looks intended to be this way. But to me this style has only been about the last twenty years or so in general production (I know because I love iridescence). If they have broken and buried a Lalique I swear I’ll build a time machine and stop them.
Click to expand...
Sorry I'm coming to the party late, that looks like a piece of lustreware, potters use metals on the glaze to give the ceramics an iridescent sheen. Been around since the 9th century and is still being produced now,
"Lustreware, type of pottery ware decorated with metallic lustres by techniques dating at least from the 9th century."
 
MorningAngel said:
Today we spent most of the day filling one of our holes in. But we did find some more bits of ceramics as we did.

To me they feel older than our 1920s house. Maybe they chucked out the old stuff. I do wish they’d have buried more of it in one place. View attachment 28011
Click to expand...
These look like 19th century blue and white, 2 of the pieces look like bits of 'willow pattern'

440px-Blueandwhite2.jpg
 
Nosmo King said:
These look like 19th century blue and white, 2 of the pieces look like bits of 'willow pattern'

View attachment 44010
Click to expand...
Most of the tiny bits of crockery we found certainly did strike me as older. So I’m not sure why it was in there. It was field before they built the houses. We’ve found the maccy Ds wrappers and fag ends of the time - oyster shells and clay pipes (did I post a picture of the fancy one?).

Digging up the garden just left us with so many more questions than answers. :conf2:
 
MorningAngel said:
Most of the tiny bits of crockery we found certainly did strike me as older. So I’m not sure why it was in there. It was field before they built the houses. We’ve found the maccy Ds wrappers and fag ends of the time - oyster shells and clay pipes (did I post a picture of the fancy one?).

Digging up the garden just left us with so many more questions than answers. :conf2:
Click to expand...
Sounds like it could have been an old dump, my dad used to go digging for old bottles in old dumps, they tended to be on bits of waste land or in woods
 
Nosmo King said:
Idk if this story belongs here, i searched for s thread about living undergroing but couldnt find one, so feel free to relocate this if there is a more appropriate thread.

A group of French volunteers have left a cave, after spending 40 days living in isolation to study the effects and adaptability of the human body.
They lived without sunlight and with no clocks to test how people cope with losing their sene of time and space.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56875801
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that this sort of research was now banned due to the possibility of damaging physical and psychological effects?

edit: They had lighting so that's how they got around it.
 
Last edited:
Nosmo King said:
Sounds like it could have been an old dump, my dad used to go digging for old bottles in old dumps, they tended to be on bits of waste land or in woods
Click to expand...
Well whoever lived here still used it as one. So many broken bottles and jars buried in the garden. I don’t know why they didn’t just put them in the bin. Or why they were broken in the first place. These type of things used to be reused. We found bits of metal the scrappy would have had. All seems very odd.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
I was under the impression that this sort of research was now banned due to the possibility of damaging physical and psychological effects?
Click to expand...
I imagine there are a lot more psychological tests before hand and support available afterwards than there used to be.
 
MorningAngel said:
Well whoever lived here still used it as one. So many broken bottles and jars buried in the garden. I don’t know why they didn’t just put them in the bin. Or why they were broken in the first place. These type of things used to be reused. We found bits of metal the scrappy would have had. All seems very odd.
Click to expand...
Maybe they only put the jars that had been broken accidentally and metal buckets that had rusted out in the midden, and maybe there wasnt a regular waste collection up until relatively recently.
 
Nosmo King said:
Maybe they only put the jars that had been broken accidentally and metal buckets that had rusted out in the midden, and maybe there wasnt a regular waste collection up until relatively recently.
Click to expand...
This stuff is post WWII up until we moved in in the 70s so there certainly were regular collections.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top