Ho.1 - Diesel Fuel Store

Delancey Lane/ Grandes Maisons Road

Work on Ho.1 commenced in early 1942, the first reference to the tunnel in a diary from February 14th 1942. The first entrances dug were those on the Grandes Maisons Road side, these entrances now lying within the grounds of a private house. Another entrance was opened in Delancey Lane, the approximate date of work beginning there is not known, but it was probably not to long after the Grandes Maisons entrances. All three entrances featured the usual 60cm tracks used for the extraction of the rock after blasting, which was transported via 90cm railway out of Grandes Maisons Road and crossing Bulwer Avenue, until terminating in a marshaling yard. Rock from the Delancey Lane entrance was transport to La Bouet. The two Grandes Maisons entrances were lined in concrete, and following a collapse in April 1943, below the Bowling Green, a shaft was dug which emerges a short distance infront of the casemates of Batterie Sperber. It has been thought that the battery crew may have used the tunnel as shelter. As of what exists beyond the link galleries is unknown, several completed and under construction chambers exist, and possibly a section a short way in from the Delancey Lane entrance was lined. 

The present state of the tunnel is poor, in 1950 a rockfall blocked access from the unlined Delancey Lane tunnel to the rest of the complex, and then the entrance itself collapsed again in 1968. In 1987, at approximately where the concrete lining terminates, both of the Grandes Maisons Road tunnel entrances collapsed sealing the tunnel entirely. Both the northern and southern entrances exist today inside the grounds of 'Stickledown' but one could scarcely walk for more than 30 meters before encountering a collapse.