Our weekly feature Down Memory Lane, by Jonathan Catton of the Thurrock Heritage and Museum Office.

THIS week in Down Memory Lane, we look into tunnels in Thurrock, a hot subject – especially if you are trying to get down Hogg Lane.

The recent collapse of a tunnel there last week reminded me we have so many industrial tunnels and remnants of early chalk excavations, such as those at Hangman’s Wood, Grays.

Our famous deneholes are probably of late medieval date, created by from digging out chalk for farming use. Natural sink holes were also often exposed at various chalk quarries with large-scale open-cast quarrying, a phenomenon of water percolation over millions of years.

By 1688, chalk quarrying and lime kilns were being run by William Palmer (founder of Palmers endowed school) and James Theobald (there is a pub named after him in Grays South).

The brick-lined tunnel which collapsed under Hogg Lane was probably built around 1890 to link the Grays Chalk and Whiting Quarry Company’s quarries. It mined clay and chalk to the west of the lane and started an extension to the quarry in 1843 on the east side.

Much later, the east pit site was known as Grays Meadow and was used for funfairs and carnival days, including the 1945 with VE Day celebrations.

It was re-named the Titan Pit later when the TW Wards & Co. shipbreaking company used it to store equipment and materials. I believe, at this time, it had a railway through the tunnel and down to Colombia Jetty, on the Thames. This chalk quarry also had another narrow-gauge line running south through Grays and on to Grays Wharf. Early maps describe it as a tramway, probably because horses dragged the wagons.

A spur line linked the Little Thurrock clay pits, where extensive brickworks (now the site of Grays Park, Park School and housing estates in Little Thurrock) were operated, using excavated natural brick earth clays, to make yellow stock bricks.

I think this line must have ceased by 1854 when the London, Tilbury & Southend Rail company carved its way through central Grays.

Asection of the tunnel survives under New Road – one side of the cutting can still be seen dividing the two new buildings of the South Essex College Grays Campus.

In some of the West Thurrock chalk quarries I have also seen Second WorldWar air raid shelter tunnels cut into the solid chalk.

Of course, there are also a number of tunnels under the Thames, facilitating service links for gas, electricity and water cooling for our power stations.

And we should not forget our twin Purfleet to Dartford road tunnels, started in early Thirties and still carrying M25 traffic today.

As for the folk tale that every old pub in Thurrock had a tunnel for smuggling contraband from the river, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. I’ve looked, in vain to find one intact – although clearly, they do seem to live on in the memory of the community.