Man Doing DIY Discovers 120-Year-Old Tunnel Underneath His Home

A man who drilled a hole in his wall was stunned to find a secret 120-year-old tunnel underneath his house.

Jake Brown was doing some work at his newly bought home when he realised that one wall had different textures.

He inspected further and made an opening big enough to get his head through to take another look.

To his shock, Jake discovered there was a huge area underneath his home in Plymouth, Devon, so he opened it up to investigate.

Inside the tunnel he discovered items including paint cans and an old newspaper that proved the tunnel had been blocked up for more than 50 years.

And he found evidence on bottles that the tunnel itself was from the early 1900s.

“While having a lazy coffee standing outside the basement front door of the property I noticed a patch in the wall of a texture different to the rest.

“I also noted that the patch was the same distance from the coal cellar already exposed, currently used for storage.

“Curiosity and a little boredom got the better of me, after which I grabbed a drill and began working pilot viewing holes into the wall.

“Once I had made two holes, one for viewing, one for a torch, I peered through into the dark dusty expanse and realised that it was another cavern of sorts."

After realising what was beneath his house, Jake opened the wall up so that he could climb down and walk inside.

He added: "I proceeded to hammer out a larger opening through which I could get a better idea of the space, and if I should carry on making mess.

“Upon creating a large enough hole to fit through, I shone a torch into the dark, revealing the larger than expected space before me.

“The cavern had a lot of builders waste from another era, so I climbed inside to explore and take a closer look."

Jake added: "I measured the rough area of the space and observed its structural integrity.

“I was pleased to note that the stone arched ceiling was in great condition and the expanse measured a healthy 5m deep, 3m high, and 3m wide."

In the area, Jake found piles of building waste and other rubbish, so started digging through it all for clues.

“Upon inspection it confirmed that the space had been covered up for many years.

“It had been used as an easy space, to hide the waste from renovating the property’s roof, guttering, doors, and windows many years ago before being covered up.

“As I moved deeper into the cavern I began to search for evidence that would tie it to a grouping of years so as I could more accurately determine how long it had been covered up.

“In the dark I collected bottles, paint cans, and my golden find was the remains of a newspaper, though was more comparable to mushy silt."

After an arduous process of preparing the newspaper in a bath filled with water, Jake was finally able to open a few pages in search of a date.

He added: “I laid the items I had collected out in the clear light to identify their age.

“The paint cans were extremely degraded but had enough detail to show that the labelling was of a 50s/60s era style.

“The bottles, after a quick wipe, were etched with detailing common also of the early 1900s.

“The biggest reveal was the newspaper, it almost disintegrated upon human touch, so a CSI style method was used to carefully peel back the congealed layers.

“I proceeded to run a warm bath and soaked the congealed brown mess in the solution for a period of time, after which tweezers and vibration were used to slowly work shards of the paper free while submerged.

“After as many fragments of the paper had been recovered as possible, I photographed while still submerged and removed what was salvageable for drying.

“I scanned through the jumbled pieces looking for dates or usable information to determine the era.

“There were little hints; the style of writing, no colour, picture style, currency and then finally a date!

“What was barely readable was the year 1964, this along with the other pieces of evidence fitted, meaning the cellar had been blocked up for over 50 years."

Armed with evidence, Jake contacted a historian friend, Richard Fisher, to ask for his input.

Jake added: "That evening I excitedly reached out to a local historian, Mr. Richard Fisher. I described the findings and asked his guidance.”

Richard said: “The whole area before then was a large hill called 'Windridge Hill' for obvious reasons.

“This was quarried away to almost high tide level, then the houses when built into the hole with cellars, undercrofts etc.

“However these early cellars, this one looks to be for coal, were built out not only underneath the pavement but out into the road.

“I have seen these places turned into wine cellars, a place to grow mushrooms, and if big enough, a 'grotto' type bathing area..."

When I lived in the NE corner of Baltimore City - late ‘80’s to early 2000’s in my circa 1925 bungalow, a house that to me at the time was “old”, the stone house next door to me I learned had been built sometime in the early 1830’s, IIRC the earliest deed for the property and house was dated 1832. I became friends with the young couple who purchased it a few years after I bought my house.

They told me that while doing some renovations and clean up, they discovered, in the still dirt floored basement, that part of the one of the basement walls had been partially covered in plywood and insulation. When they removed it because it looked decayed and somewhat moldy, they found a tunnel, now partially collapsed so there was no way to tell how far back it went but it went pretty far before the collapsed section when I saw it. But the whole thing looked a bit too unstable for any of us to venture too far in. The direction of the tunnel appeared to go back and then slightly up toward the hillside behind the property before the collapse.

It could have been used for “cold” storage or might have connected to a similarly aged house up the hill on the next street over but for what reason that might have been or if it was is unknown.

The husband who was in the construction and renovation business thought the tunnel was built sometime after the house given how the stone wall of the basement surrounding the tunnel entrance looked as if it had been removed at a later date, chiseled out with some of the stones reused in the tunnel entrance but that the construction of the tunnel looked fairly old as well given the wood timbers used for shoring did not appear to be machine cut.

In his opinion it seemed a bit large to be for cold storage but was still certainly possible especially since the house was probably sitting on a farm, perhaps a substantial sized farm back then. It was also “possible” although unlikely that it had some connection to the underground railroad given that Baltimore was one of the last stops before crossing the Mason Dixon line into Pennsylvania.

When the couple bought the house it was in pretty bad shape but they did a great job of restoring it, restoring the original wood planked floors, moldings, etc. in keeping with the house’s history while also modernizing the kitchen and bathroom, plumbing, electrical, HVAC.

It was a charming house but one drawback to living in such an old house as my friend told me – no closets!

It was probably a rather large home for the time when it was built for a simple farmstead, certainly not a manor house or mansion or “plantation” house but bigger than a mere simple farmstead house yet still a very small house by today’s standards.

The original house, minus the latter back addition where the “modern” kitchen was, had a parlor or dining room and another room and upstairs had three bedrooms, although unlike modern houses they were not separated by a hallway but all ran together with only doorways separating them from each other. The upstairs and only bathroom in the house was a much latter addition probably added in the late 18th to early 19th century and obviously took space from one of the original bedrooms that was now not much larger than a walk in closet in some houses today but big enough for a cosy nursery when they had their baby.

FWIW, when I was digging to put in a vegetable and herb garden in my back yard, I found several old bottles, a few complete but most sadly broken that dated to the late 1800’s to early 1900’s – old beer bottles, a whiskey bottle and a couple of what appeared to be patent medicine bottles and some broken pottery and dishware. Since they all dated earlier than my house and the house on the other side of me, both built around 1925, I can only presume it was a rubbish pit from the old stone house.

And in back of my detached garage when I worked to remove vines and undergrowth and dug to plant some shade plants, I found the remains of what was probably a smoke house complete with charred animal bones and a few very old rusted knives and tools. Not sure how old they were though.

My neighbor in the old stone house also found some interesting things when she dug to plant a garden – a couple of old horseshoes, a partially complete leather bridle, a couple of lenghts of metal chain, some broken glassware and dishware that appeared to be mid-19th century and the most interesting finds of all, several pieces of what looked to be a very old but incomplete revolver.

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