Qualla: Rotherhithe Tunnel

Rotherhithe Tunnel: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Addison, CC BY-SA 2.0. The lanes are 2.4 metres wide. Modern road lanes are 3.6. Drive into the Rotherhithe Tunnel and the white-glazed brick walls close in on either side, the carriageway curves where it should run straight, and somewhere above you the Thames flows past at high tide. The bends are not for fun. They sit at the location of the four ventilation shafts, allowing the tunnel sections between them to run straight while avoiding the foundations of the old docks above. But London has another explanation that locals still repeat, even though Transport for London calls it a myth: that the bends were put there to prevent horses from seeing daylight at the end of the tunnel too early, which might make them bolt for the exit. When the tunnel opened in 1908, almost everything going through it was pulled by a horse.

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Image: Martin Addison | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rotherhithe Tunnel: Building It

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marathon, CC BY-SA 2.0. The London County Council watched the Blackwall Tunnel open in 1897 to enormous success and decided it needed another toll-free crossing further west, midway between Tower Bridge and Blackwall, to serve the still-flourishing London Docks. Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, the LCC's engine...

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Image: Marathon | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rotherhithe Tunnel: The People Who Lost Their Homes

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. The success of the engineering had a human cost. The long approach ramps and the cut-and-cover sections displaced nearly three thousand local residents from Rotherhithe and Limehouse. There was significant opposition. In 1903 the LCC built replacement tenements in Swan Lane, Clar...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rotherhithe Tunnel: Opening Day to Model T

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robin Stott, CC BY-SA 2.0. The tunnel was formally opened in 1908 by George, Prince of Wales, later King George V, and Richard Robinson, Chairman of the LCC. Two pink granite portals, both Grade II heritage listed since 1983, mark the ends. The four shafts numbered one to four, south to north, were origina...

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Image: Robin Stott | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rotherhithe Tunnel: Tiles, Fans, and Forty-Nine to Hospital

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen Richards, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original bore was lined throughout with white glazed tiles, the north half by Boote's and the south by Edwards, with a three-foot band of brown tiles marking the boundary where their work met. After repeated failures of the southern tiling, those were stripped out in 2011 and...

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Image: Stephen Richards | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rotherhithe Tunnel: Banned, Filmed, and Sung

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. A 2003 survey rated the Rotherhithe Tunnel the tenth most dangerous tunnel in Europe. Transport for London now enforces a ban on any vehicle over two metres high or two metres wide, and any vehicle with a maximum authorised mass over two tonnes. In the first eight months of 2021 ...

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Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0