The Hidden Glasgow Forums

crusty_bint wrote:Arial view of Dial House and vicinity can be viewed here

http://uk.msnusers.com/glasgowstuff/shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1

Nice pic. The footbridge over the M8 that ends mid-air is particularly striking!

tip2tail wrote:There is DEFFINATLY - 100% - a tunnel under dial house.

Can't say how I know for fear of repremand - but I know! The tunnel actually runs from there to the junction of Cathedral Street + North Hannover Street.
Mark

There is a tunnel from dial house to the said location. It goes under the Brit oil/Abby nat building (The big one beside the Hilton) turns and heads down to the location mentioned in the quote. I’ve been told it has nothing to do with Cold war activity (BOO HOO) it was the exchange for all of the west of Scotland, and had switching gear below to turn it all off.
Think copper cabling “yesterday” and today’s fibre optic I’ve been told.

I'll find out about the sav/pavil building

Hey all,

Here are the photos that I said I would take. They are as close as I could get just now and engineers are all over it just now.

And for once - typically the day I want to take pics - the main door wasnt open but you can see the Air Vent in the photos and I will try again later today because I'm only round the corner from it just now.

Mark

Hi folks, Im a newbie here.
First post.
I know the building well, I always wondered what it was, iv'e seen it open a couple of times, with men in overalls lingering inside, i thought it was a waorkspace or something, but always thought it was a stupid place to put one.

All the best

Stevie

AMEC van - significant?

Just found this, very interesting. One thing is puzzling me, the purpose of the tunnel. It must have a reason for being, here are a couple of suggestions:

Bypass - avoid all the traffic in the city centre.
Not just a tunnel - There has to be more than just the start of a tunnel at Cathedral Street, underground exchange, more tunnels, unfinished something.

Does anyone know?

David.

DVF, have you checked out JayKays links on the firsat page of this string to Anchor, Guardin and Kingsway sites?

I think its also been mentioned about a tunnel from the Royal Infirmary going to ??? (It is undoubtably older than the Dial House one tho) A biology teacher of mine once told me about his student days working in the tunnel ...apparently theres a museum thingy where they keep all the freaks... babies with 2 heads and the like all picked and in jars!

...anywho ( ), could it be possible the intention was to link these two facilities???

anyone ever wished they were omniscient?

[quote="crusty_bint"] from A biology teacher of mine once told me about his student days working in the tunnel ...apparently theres a museum thingy where they keep all the freaks... babies with 2 heads and the like all picked and in jars!

quote]

The two headed baby thingy, would you be mistaking it for the one in Glasgow uni. I’ve seen the whole collections
Its true about everything you have heard about this museum, unfortunately it’s not open to the general public.
Theres more than two headed babies in it

So it's an escape route then. Surprising though that theres only one, when there are loads of them at the other sites. There maybe more connected to it.

Just had a look in my Glasgow overhead photography map book (excellent book, everybody should have one). If you draw a line from Dial House or The Abbey National building through the little building at Cathedral/North Hanover, it will cross through the Royal Infirmary, coincidence?

Also the NATO room in the old GPO building, I heard that too. There was mention here of the tunnel going there from the little building instead, or as well. Since the GPO owned the tunnel and Dial House back in the day, and with the NATO room being, there are more than likely more tunnels.

David.

have a look at this link. its a Pdf file. Its about manchester but it could be relevent here.
http://www.manchestercivic.org.uk/forum/30/F30_07.pdf

DVF wrote:So it's an escape route then. Surprising though that theres only one, when there are loads of them at the other sites. There maybe more connected to it.

Also the NATO room in the old GPO building, I heard that too. There was mention here of the tunnel going there from the little building instead, or as well. Since the GPO owned the tunnel and Dial House back in the day, and with the NATO room being, there are more than likely more tunnels.

David.

A wee visit to the Cathedral Street/N Hanover street site gave me a bit of a surprise at the weekend. The object on the picture described as an air vent looked way too small to me to be that, given the alleged size of the tunnels. However, on a late night visit I was a) surprised at the noise coming from it and b) surprised by the amount of air blowing out of it.

Also, there is a similar looking object further along Cathedral Street (at the junction with Castle Street. IIRC it was as little bigger than the one in the pic. It too was making a racket and shifting quite a quantity of air. This suggests to me that if there is a tunnel there, it extends along Cathedral St to the Royal Infirmary, as others have suggested.

As for the (alleged) Nato room below the GPO building being connected, this could make sense. The other exchanges -Guardian, anchor etc- were afaik paid for by NATO as opposed to local council or UK government, so this would make sense.

As for a lack of entrance/exit points to the tunnel, it may well be that these are incorporated into existing buildings, eg the George Square GPO building and other BT/PO buildings in the city centre. These too may be the locations of air vents. Incorporating these into buildings would have kept things a bit more low profile and a bit more secure.

possibly, and more likely to be a tunnel to connect all the GPO buildings in glasgow. think about it, the GPO was a huge organisation, and linking tunnels would be an easy way of shifting stuff between the offices for security purposes instead of taking them through the streets.

having said all that, i'm off to track down my mates dad who was some sort of head honcho for the GPO back in the day, a bottle of whiskey and a few hours could soon clear this up! i'll let you know what i find out.

Turns out he passed away last year, rest in peace.

spoke to his son, my friend, who, as far as he can remember, thinks his dad said there were tunnels linking the main GPO buildings in the city centre. the plot thickens.

OK, lets gather the evidence.

We know, definitely, there's a tunnel under Dial House going somewhere.
We know, definitely, there's a tunnel under the corner of North Hanover Street and Cathedral Street.
We know there was a NATO room under the old GPO building in George Square.

There's evidence of a tunnel, or something, under the Hope Street Post Office.
There are stories of secret bunkers under George Square.
The tunnel under North Hanover may go to Dial House (most probably).
The tunnel may go to the GPO building in George Square.
A tunnel may extend all the way to the Royal Infirmary.
There are stories of tunnels from the City Chambers to the other side of George Square somewhere.

Anything I missed?


So, we are dealing with the GPO (still under Government control), NATO, and possibly the Council since they would have moaned that they were getting left out.

The GPO would have been more than happy for NATO to pay for all these underground tunnels etc., saves them a fortune.

The other sites in Britain have a maze of tunnels and rooms for their underground exchanges, of which there is supposed to be one under Glasgow too.

So what are we looking for?

Major GPO sites in the city centre, which are now either Royal mail, British Telecom, or in some cases, in private hands now.

I'm sure I've missed something, I'll remember as soon as I hit that Submit button.