A very stiff gate and a lot of effort, I was into the N. Thames Gas Central Area tunnels. A dark tunnel lay ahead of me, with a slight glint of light ahead. Nervously I kept going keeping ears open for anyone ahead. This is not somewhere I want to be caught. Although the ease (ok the gates were a bugger) with which i got in was quite startling, the Daily Mail/Express would have a field day.

At a junction I found a light switch, and illuminated the next 100m. This ended in a wall as the cables disappeared into it. To the right was a flight of concrete stairs to a sealed metal entrance, only openable from outside. So back to that junction...

The junction involved going across a sort of red metal topped table, and into the left tunnel.

Unlike the rectangular one I'd left, this had an arch like quality. It bent around to the left and came to a split.

Both side went up a few steps and involved being bent double for 10m, until coming to another passage. This was directly under a road as one could here the cars whizzing across above somewhere near Aldersgate.

This passage had regular small vents going to the surface in the roof, however i struggled to capture it properly.

Like the other tunnel I reached the end of, this too ended with pipes going into a wall, and a set of stairs going to a sealed metal entrance. So back the way I came and a few more photos.

And now time to solve the mystery of what was down the stair behind the metal door as I entered this set of tunnels. The doors lead down some narrow brick steps to water dripping at the bottom. A quick dash through the drips and I was in a long rising passage with curved roof supports at regular intervals. They kept their height as the path rose, meaning i had to bend more than double near the top where it ended after roughly 25 metres. On the left was a tiled water run off for very little water. At the top was the familiar egg shaped drain path, but only about 80cms high, a mini drain.

I walked back to the dripping stairs where the tiled run off disappeared under the brickwork, most likely to the nearby River Fleet which runs down Farringdon St to the Thames.