Newcastle underground: Inside the city's Victoria Tunnel

Julie Harrison went underground to find out more about the varied history of Newcastle's Victoria Tunnel for ITVX

Under the streets of Newcastle lies a little-known tunnel which has been there for generations.

Stretching from the River Tyne to the Town Moor, Victoria Tunnel was built to transport coal from Leazes Main Colliery in Spital Tongues.

A feat of Victorian engineering, the underground wagonway avoided levies charged on the transportation of coal above the ground.

Kev Byrne, from the Ouseburn Trust, which now runs tours of the tunnel, said: "It was built when the industrial revolution was really in full stream so in about 1835 there were two gentlemen who wanted to be part of the trend at the time. They started to extract coal out of the ground up in Spital Tongues."

"There were lots of issues with that coal coming out of the ground. They were haemorrhaging money."

With costs making the project uneconomically viable, they decided to build the tunnel in an old glacial riverbed to save money.

It opened in 1842 and was used until 1860, when the colliery closed.

Abandoned and forgotten about, the tunnel was disused until the Second World War, when it was used as an air raid shelter.

Mr Byrne added: "It was used by the people, mostly from Byker, to come and hide out when the air raid siren sounded. You would have them down here for maybe 12 hours at a time.

"They were down there for considerably longer than other towns and cities because the Luftwaffe was using Newcastle as a navigational aid, so they would fly over, drop their bombs and turn around and fly back."

Access to the tunnel was once again blocked at the end of the war and it did not reopen until this century.

Since 2008, members of the public have been able to take guided tours, which are run by the Ouseburn Trust.

Mr Byrne said: "It was a massive engineering achievement in the Victorian era and then its got this lovely history. It's something to be celebrated really - why leave it as an empty space?"

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