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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
 Posted - 31 Mar 2010 : 20:44:48
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Angmeringite wrote today on the General Forum:
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Apparently there is an entrance to underground tunnels in the old headteachers house at the top of the hill by fletchers field. I was told they may have been used by smugglers.
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 31 Mar 2010 : 21:01:03
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Leslie Baker, who lived in the headteacher's house for many years has never mentioned a tunnel there. I'm sure he would have if there had been. The house was immediately north of the school.
Perhaps, Angmeringite, you may have meant Church House on the corner of Lansdowne Road which adjoins the old headteacher's house. It has be rumoured that there was a tunnel from that house to St Nicholas Church or to St Nicholas House in Church Road. I understand that there is an tunnel looking entrance in the cellar which has been bricked up. However, it may just have been a storage arch that had become dangerous and had been sealed off.
The soil in the village is brick earth which is not an ideal material for constructing tunnels. Building archaeologists will tell you that the majority of "tunnel" claims are unfounded.
I have seen the small blocked "tunnel" entrance in the cellar of St Nicholas House. Very inconclusive! Might have been an internal ice-house. |
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patty
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
738 Posts |
Posted - 31 Mar 2010 : 21:16:26
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This could be one of those difficult ones.
If I lived in a house with a cellar (or otherwise) entrance to tunnels under the village, I think I would probably deny their existence as you could stand the risk of being deluged with visitors wanting to see, excavate etc etc, and you could loose all privacy.
On the other hand, I am sure there would be historical societies, that would assist with finding a way to access without causing all the inconvenience.
Is it possible that tunnel rumours could also be linked to the culvert that runs up Water Lane?
Wasnt there a rumour of a tunnel from where the Manor Hotel is in the HIgh Street to somehwere in the village.
Would love it if one of these rumours was true.
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any comments and views listed above are those of myself personally and not as a Parish Councillor, and in no way reflect opinions of the Parish Council or any other professional bodies |
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 31 Mar 2010 : 21:29:56
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| High Street tunnel was probably just a drainage tunnel. Village lads used to get into the culvert by the Lamb and make noises down the High Street drainage tunnel. The booming noise would come up gratings near Woodies scaring the village ladies gossipping nearby! See book "Angmering - Reminiscences of bygone days". |
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jammer
Senior Member
172 Posts |
Posted - 01 Apr 2010 : 07:29:40
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quote:
Originally posted by neil
High Street tunnel was probably just a drainage tunnel. Village lads used to get into the culvert by the Lamb and make noises down the High Street drainage tunnel. The booming noise would come up gratings near Woodies scaring the village ladies gossipping nearby! See book "Angmering - Reminiscences of bygone days".
Not sure if its connected or not, but when I were a lad there used to be a tunnel / culvert that ran under water lane, you used to get into it through a ditch under where there are now some new houses built on the corner of weavers hill. It used to run most of the way along water lane. This was over 20 years ago but some of the local kids (obviously not me  ) used to traverse this tunnel for an adventure. After about 70/80m there was a small chamber which was used as a kind of club house (according to what my friends told me of course ) I dread to think what could of happened if it had filled up with water (Shudder!)
I think the entrance has now been completely covered by the new houses. if you walk along the pavement opposite gladstone cottages you can still see three stone slabs which mark the cover over where the chamber was (I think) |
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 01 Apr 2010 : 09:09:55
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You are correct, jammer. Black Ditch stream runs underground from just NE of Weavers Hill, along Water Lane, under The Square, and exits behind the pumping station next to the Village Hall.
The section of the culvert in The Square was built in the first half of the 19thC by an Angmering builder by the name of C. Bongard, which did away with the pond which was located where The Green is now. It partially solved some of the flooding problems in the village centre but not all of them.
In 1931, the stream which ran along Water Lane to The Square was culverted and part way along appears to be a large access chamber covered in concrete slabs to which jammer refers.
There are several accounts of village boys walking through the culvert in the first half of the 20thC. The ends now have grills covering them to prevent access. |
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compost
Advanced Member
265 Posts |
Posted - 02 Apr 2010 : 17:03:45
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Patty,
I had heard years ago that a tunnel went from Angmering Manor Hotel up to the house with the big Eagles/Griffin stone gate markers opposite the turning for Weavers Ring.
I was lead to believe that both properties were used as some sort of religious building?
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 02 Apr 2010 : 17:52:48
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One thing readers should be aware of, and that is that Angmering Manor Hotel was never a manor house.
It was the rectory from the 16thC up until 1921 when the property was sold to Major Francis John Angus Skeet, a latter-day supporter of the Jacobean cause and a fairly prolific writer of Roman Catholic biographies and other historical works. Additionally, he was the author of a very useful Angmering history published in 1920. He renamed the property “Glebe House”.
Following Major Skeet’s death in the early 1940s, the house and lands came into the possession of Wing Commander Burchell who farmed the land until the early/mid 1950s.
The house and gardens were sold to the vocational Nuns of the Holy Cross and converted into a convent guest house caring for convalescents. They also assisted in the teaching at St Wilfrid’s RC Primary School in Arundel Road, and provided other community support. The property during their tenure was renamed “Syon House”.
Part of Gothic House (with the eagles) was purchased as an annex for the nuns.
The nuns left Syon House in 1998 and it was purchased by the Chapman hotel group, in 2006 opening as Angmering Manor Hotel.
I've never heard of a tunnel between Syon House and Gothic House. What would be the point? They only became associated with one another 50 years ago. |
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