30/05/2025
Recap of today’s outdoor activity with the girls and their friends, a trip to the cinema to see Lilo & Stitch then sight seeing to The Greenwich Foot Tunnel/Cutty Sark Gardens
The Greenwich Foot Tunnel is situated beneath the River Thames and connects Cutty Sark Gardens in the Royal Borough of Greenwich to the south, with Island Gardens in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the north.
Over 15 metres below the Thames, the Foot Tunnel is 370 metres long, with an outside diameter of around 4 metres and 0.32 metres thick cast iron and concrete walls.
The wall linings are covered with 200,000 original glazed tiles, which are still in place today.
The tunnel replaced an unreliable ferry service to
100 steps and there are 87 steps at the Island
enable dock workers, living on the south side of
Gardens end.
the river, to get to and from the thriving docks and shipyards that operated in and around the area where the modern financial centre of Canary Wharf now stands. At their busiest, London's docks employed over 100,000 people, landing goods from all over the world.
Close to the northern end, the diameter is reduced to 2.6 metres for a short section as a result of repairs following bomb damage during the Second World War.
The Foot Tunnel was designed by the London County Council's Chief Engineer Sir Alexander
It was built following approval of the London County Council Bridges Committee, chaired by Mr Will Crooks (1852- 1921) in 1898. Will Crooks was a working-class politician who once worked on the docks before a political career saw him become the local Member of Parliament.
Binnie (1839-1917) and built by civil engineering contractors John Cochrane & Co.
The tunnel was built by tunnellers digging through the chalk by hand. Work on the tunnel started in June 1899 and it was opened on 4 August 1902.
Two years later the lifts were installed. The lifts were refurbished in 1992 and then completely replaced in 2012 when major renovation works on the tunnel were undertaken.
The Royal Borough of Greenwich and London Borough of Tower Hamlets are joint equal owners of the tunnel.
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