Tunnels underneath the River Thames

The table below lists many of the tunnels under the River Thames in and near London, which, thanks largely to its underlying bed of clay, is one of the most tunnelled cities in the world. The tunnels are used for road vehicles, pedestrians, Tube and railway lines and utilities. Several tunnels are over a century old: the original Thames Tunnel was the world's first underwater tunnel.

East (Downstream) to West (Upstream)	Name	Type	Between...	Construction Year	Comments
1	High Speed 1	Twin Rail Tunnels	Swanscombe, Kent—West Thurrock, Essex	2007
2	Dartford Tunnel	Twin Road Tunnels		1963	West Tunnel - 1963, East Tunnel - 1980
3	Dartford Cable Tunnel	Utilities		2004
4	Docklands Light Railway Tunnels	Rail	Woolwich Arsenal—King George V	2009
5	Woolwich foot tunnel	Foot	Woolwich—North Woolwich	1912
6	Jubilee Line Tunnels	Rail	North Greenwich—Canning Town	1999
7	Blackwall Tunnels	Road	North Greenwich—Poplar	1897	Second bore in 1967. Alexander Binnie
8	Jubilee Line Tunnels	Rail	Canary Wharf—North Greenwich	1999
9	Docklands Light Railway Tunnels	Rail	Island Gardens—Cutty Sark	1999
10	Greenwich Foot Tunnel	Foot	Millwall—Greenwich	1902	Alexander Binnie
11	Jubilee Line Tunnels	Rail	Canada Water—Canary Wharf	1999
12	Rotherhithe Tunnel	Road	Rotherhithe—Limehouse	1908	Maurice Fitzmaurice
13	Thames Tunnel	Rail	Wapping—Rotherhithe	1843	Marc Brunel. The world's first underwater tunnel, now part of the East London Line. Originally a foot tunnel.
14	Tower Subway	Utilities		1870	Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead. The world's first underground tube railway. Initially a rail tunnel, then a foot tunnel. Currently carries pipes and fibre-optic lines.
15	Northern Line Tunnels (City Branch)	Disused	Borough tube station—King William Street	1890	City & South London Railway tunnels. Originally rail tunnels, now disused. The world's first electric tube railway, with tunnels only 10 feet 2 inches (3.10 m) in diameter, became disused in 1900 when new 11 feet 6 inches (3.51 m) tunnels to the east replaced them
16	Waterloo & City Line Tunnels	Rail		1898
17	Northern Line Tunnels (Charing Cross Branch)	Rail		1926
18	Bakerloo Line Tunnels	Rail		1906
19	Jubilee Line Tunnels	Rail	Westminster—Waterloo	1999
20	Victoria Line Tunnels	Rail		1971

Other tunnels

The Crossrail project, authorised in 2008, will see a further pair of rail tunnels constructed between North Woolwich and Woolwich. The first Crossrail trains are due to run in 2017.

The figure and list above leave out at least three tunnels: under the Thames Barrier; the 2.8m diameter tunnel carrying electricity cables from West Ham to the Greenwich Peninsula constructed up to 1999 for the Millennium Dome; and a tunnel to the site of the old Ferranti power station on the east side of the mouth of Deptford Creek.

There is also a tunnel between Cottons centre and the old Billingsgate fish market near to London Bridge. Citibank used it for cabling at one point - it was large enough for a man to walk through.

Background

London's abundance of river tunnels has resulted from a number of factors. For historical reasons, the city centre has relatively few railway bridges (or for that matter main-line railway stations). Only three railway bridges exist in central London, only one of which provides through services across the capital. Consequently, railway builders have had to tunnel under the river in the city centre rather than bridge it. By contrast, railway bridges are relatively common to the west of the inner city.

Another historical factor has been the presence of the Port of London, which until the 1980s required large ships to be able to access the river as far upstream as the City of London. Until the construction of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge in 1991, the easternmost bridge on the Thames was Tower Bridge in central London. Even now, the Dartford Crossing provides the only way to cross the Thames by road between London and the sea (with predictable results for traffic congestion). The width of the river downstream meant that tunnels were the only options for crossings before improvements in technology allowed the construction of high bridges such as the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford.

See also

• Crossings of the River Thames
• Subterranean London