Question - Brighton trolleybuses

[RazorSix6]

I'm on the search for some information if it exists.

I have heard a story said on more than one occasion over the years that somewhere in the vicinity of Lewes (East Sussex) that there are/were some disused tunnels, possibly of railway origin, that were used by Brighton Corporation to store their old fleet of Trolleybuses when they were replaced with diesel buses many years ago. The story goes that the tunnels were sealed and forgotten about and to this day there is still a fleet of trolleybuses stored underground somewhere under the South Downs.

I was wondering if anybody else had ever come across this story who could shed some light on it. If this location truly exists I would dearly like some clues as to where to start looking. It's a story that's bugged me for probably 35 years. No-one has ever been able to confirm it but by the same token no-one has ever been able categorically to say that it's Bull and I'm wasting my time. Anybody?

 

[TalkingMask]

Best thing I’d say is see if there’s any OS maps of the area and try figure things out, OS maps are great for looking at older railway lines and tunnels and would be a good way to hunt about, whether or not the tunnels on the maps are still there is for you to find out after 😁

 

[tigger]

Seems rather implausible.
Few tunnels in Lewes and there are no extra spurs under the castle area.
There were very few other bits of rail infrastructure apart from the mineral lines into the quarry, later works, now Cliffe Industrial estate, area. There were no underground parts to that.

As the replacement is within living memory I'd be surprised someone in the preservation movement hadn't documented it.

Councils rarely keep caches of things like this...and if they did they'd have sold them to the person who gives the council the biggest brown envelope and crate of booze by now

There's a website which maps most of the UK's rail and canal network through time. It includes little mineral lines and lines that weren't ever connected to the main network. IIRC it was called something like railmaponline (as it started doing railways before moving on to cover other transportation).

 

[VirtualExplorer]

I would say they would have to be very large tunnels to store a pile of double decker buses. If such large tunnels were there then it would be pretty widely known given how many people are interested in such things and the fact that the entrance of tunnels of this size would not be easy to hide. I did a search and came up with this old picture from 1974 of a trolley bus dumped in a quarry near Lewes (probably where the industrial estate is now by the river on the edge of Lewes):

https://flic.kr/p/9zXFVQ

Looks like some of them might have been dumped in a quarry and they were probably a major attraction for local school kids of the era- this could be were this rumour started in the schools of Lewes in the 1960s and 1970s. The only true hidden tunnels I have ever heard of under the south downs are those at Truleigh Hill and there certainly are not any buses in them although if you smoke some of the plants in there you might see some trolley buses driving by.

 

[RazorSix6]

Very interesting. So there is some small substance to the story. That's a great pic and a good find. Thank you.