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Report (Permission Visit) - Nelson Research Laboratories' Tunnel, Stafford, 2012 | Underground Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report (Permission Visit) Nelson Research Laboratories' Tunnel, Stafford, 2012

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Fuzzball

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Hello!
I had a delve into some photos from years past and found a couple of snaps from a short permission-visit of a short tunnel under Stafford Uni. I had at the time thought about posting these but was waiting to access another part of the tunnel system and take better pictures of both. However, none of that materialised, and the pictures quickly disappeared into time, until recently. So here's those snaps and some British computer/electrical development history and Stafford trivia concerning it. It's text and archive heavy, but there are some pictures of my visit, too! I'd also love to know if anyone also visited this place or has any further or updated info on it all! :D At the bottom of this page, I've added links to the excellent websites which contain the info (and more) for this mini-report.

During my time at Staffordshire University's Stafford campus (called Beaconside), I'd heard that there was a cold-war era tunnel rumoured to exist under the uni that led to both the MOD base next-door as well as the satellite campus up the road...and potentially beyond! It all sounded too cool to be true: A uni with a secret cold-war era abandoned thingy underneath?? Riiiiiight. And inevitably, a dull reality-check seemed proven when a uni official confirmed that there was no such thing. Damn. However, there were...subtle...indications shuffling around that there could well be the remains of some sort of subterranean facility. There's the not-so secret history of the Beaconside campus hosting R&D of fledgling computer technology in the late '50s to the late '60s, some of the resulting computer tech being on permanent exhibition in the uni's School of Computing. Then there was a WW2 connection to the nearby satellite campus... But, still despite this rich history there was no sign of a tunnel/bunker etc anywhere on campus. Ho hum. But, while in my last year at the uni, I got talking to a security guard, who one evening casually asked if I'd visited "the tunnel under the library"....(!!!!) Fast forward a week and myself, plus an intrigued housemate, found ourselves in said "does-not-exist" tunnel. Lucked out.

Stafford has quite an impressive and profound history regarding electrical technology. It apparently started when Siemens built a factory in the town in 1901. However, In 1919, as part of war reparations, Siemens' UK assets (including the Stafford factory) were funnelled into the creation of English Electric. After WW2, EE set-up the Nelson Research Laboratories two miles east of Stafford, in a disused WW2 aircraft engine testing facility in Blackheath Covert. These old buildings were somewhat unfit for purpose and there's some amusing anecdotes of how resident rodents frequently caused damage to the computers. After the NRL moved out and the old buildings demolished, the rebuilt and renamed site - now Blackheath Lane - became the nursing and midwifery schools of Staffordshire University in 1992.

And speaking of Stafford Uni. The campus was simply farming land called Beacon Hill until the early 1960s when the Staffordshire College of Technology was built (at the behest of EE). This became a polytechnic in 1972 and the area was renamed as Beaconside. As well as EE's Blackheath Site, EE also raised a three-winged building at the fringes of the Beaconside College campus. visible on vintage maps as the Nelson Research Laboratories. EE created the DEUCE computer system which was tested at both these NRL labs. What's more, when NRL vacated the three-winged building in the '80s - two wings were demolished and the remaining wing was absorbed by the College and became the campus' Nelson Library. It's this library that I camped-out in most nights during my final year of assignments and is where I befriended the security guard. It's also where the useful section of the tunnel could (can still be???) accessed. These maps (Library of Scotland, Oldmaps.co.uk, Google) depict the same area showing the growth of the sites.

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1950s. The Beacon Hill (now Beaconside) is left and Blackheath Covert (and Lane) right.

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1960s slightly zoomed-in view of the same area from map above.
New College campus on left. Nelson labs (far left) and labs on BlackHeath Lane (far right).

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1980s. Slightly zoomed out from previous map.
The College is now a Polytechnic. Nelson labs is now the library building (under the Depot)
And Nelson labs on Blackheath Lane (perhaps abandoned?) still remain for now.


871632

Circa early 70s. Blackheath Lane Nelson Laboratories.
Potentially some of the old brick WW2 buildings also appear on site?
The entrance to the tunnel would/is most likely a brick hut to the left of this picture.


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Circa early 70s. Blackheath Lane Nelson Laboratories. Same car-park.
The newly-extended College or Polytechnic main building can be seen in the distance on right.


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The College in 1964 just after opening.
The Nelson Labs can be seen at top-right and the middle wing of that block of those labs is the one that remains today.
The stairs to the tunnel might likely then have been just behind that inset frontage.
The warehouse-type buildings to the left still remain
to this day and can be seen at the top left of the picture below.


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The former College/Polytechnic/Uni campus today(ish). Weston Road is just out of shot at the bottom of this picture.
The Octagon used to house the School of computing and exhibited items from EE and Nelson Labs' work.
The remaining Nelson Lab wing can be seen top-right under the car park.


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Today. The former university's Octagon School of Computing is bottom left. The library (and former Nelson Labs) are now a Nursery. Nursing campus and former Labs.
The red line indicates the route of the tunnel accessible (at least when I visited).
The pinkish line indicates the tunnel I haven't been able to see and which might or might not be accessible and where it likely terminates. Could there be further branches??


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This is the remaining wing of the former Beaconside Labs, once the Uni's Nelson Library, now a nursery.
The tunnel was accessed underneath the main stairwell to the far left of the building.


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The nurses' and midwifery block of the former uni on Blackheath Lane.
This was the site of the secret 1940s labs and later Nelson labs.
The most probable entry to the tunnel is apparently the brick hut with the red door.
Contrast this view with the first picture from the '70s taken from roughly the same spot.

So.... now the tunnel itself, finally. To access was simply to descend a flight of stairs below the main internal staircase inside the Library. Usually the tunnel staircase had a partition around it. When at the base of this stairs in the basement, there was a short narrow corridor stacked with old chairs and tables which then opened out into the view below. The tunnel itself wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but after so long of wondering about this place, it was satisfying to know that loitering around the uni after graduating and getting an SU job had also led to finally seeing the tunnel!
There didn't seem to be any indication of the tunnel's former use or any stuff to get excited about, sadly. And the fact it was blocked-off was a bit disappointing, but still..... very atmospheric!
What was particularly cool was that the further the tunnel extended out from under the library, the wetter and more decayed the tunnel got. As soon as the tunnel was without the protective foundations of the Library, the bare land above made it's presence felt. The regimented strip-lighting devolved from fully functional to useless, rusted, gooey splodges of metal.

The tunnel seemed a very simple construction of a metal framework assembled above was could have been a cut-and-cover trench, before being bricked at the sides and then topped with concrete slabs.

As for the usage of the tunnel itself and how old it is, well it'll of been when the Labs were built with the College in 1964, as there was nothing on-site before then. It's doubtful therefore that these tunnels would have been around when Blackheath was being used in the 1940s, despite the work there being top-secret. Most likely these tunnels would have simply been a convenient way of strolling between the two Lab sites while musing over "mainframe store parity errors caused by rats", adjusting your bow tie and smoking a pipe, while cutting-edge computer development took place at either end.
Mad Men meets the IT Crowd. (Or in America it'd be The M.I.T Crowd perhaps).

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Looking down the tunnel to Blackheath as we entered from the library.


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The bricked-up entrance to the branch that led into the MOD section (I think that area is now a Police college).


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The bricked-up end which used to lead to Blackheath Lane. The brickwork actually seemed fairly recent(?)


871530

Looking back towards the Library entrance.
The blocked-off branch to the MOD is to the right in this pic. And behind the camera is the other blocked-off bit.


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Yummy icing and crumbly metal pastry.

----- BONUS TRIVIA ROUND -----
English Electric was absorbed into GEC the Group in 1968. Incidentally, the GEC was in partnership with Alsthom. They operated this former EE factory and social club in Stafford on St Leonard's Avenue, until it closed in 2018 and was then demolished. Did anyone explore this place (pictured below) while it was abandoned?

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A D.E.U.C.E computer drum. This was one of the exhibits featured in a cabinet at the School of Computing at Staffs Uni for the
Staffordshire University Computing Futures Museum.
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.

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The DEUCE mainframe computer in an imagined setting.

So, who was Nelson? To me, Nelson will always be the mysterious barman in the series Life on Mars. But anyway, Nelson was a clearly respected managing director of EE in the 1930s.

Further reading. After having a nose into some more history about Computing and electronics in Stafford, it turns out that there's further connections to our old and sorely missed friend Pyestock NGTE,
together with Marconi and many other firms and establishments which have contributed to technology, society and provided the odd abandoned site here and there.

Thanks for having a ganders, and try to remain calm.
 

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Fuzzball

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Very detailed and thorough report it has to be said! Good effort :thumb

Oh, tanks very much! :-) All archive credit goes to the two guys who wrote the history on those websites though, otherwise I'd have been stumped as there's not much else online about Nelson Labs, and still seems like the libraries in Staffordshire are shut. Perhaps there's further info and photos in some book! I wish I had more photos though! But then, it was only a short stretch of tunnel left. It'd be fantastic if there is more tunnel still accessible. Might be worth contacting the owners of the former uni site perhaps to see.
 

myke

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
First picture looks to have a high pressure gas main and regulator on the right so still in use for services at that time and if still in use will have to be accessible.
Well researched post shame you could not acces further
 

Fuzzball

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
[/QUOTE]
First picture looks to have a high pressure gas main and regulator on the right so still in use for services at that time and if still in use will have to be accessible.
Well researched post shame you could not acces further

Yes! I forgot to mention that I saw that while down there. This is a very good point! Perhaps that's why part of that tunnel was kept in operation, as well as for storage.
Indeed, it was a curtailed thrill. But, I'm heading back up to Staffs to visit a friend so I might make some enquiries and see if I learn anything new. I'll post any new developments or potential visits on here in case anyone wants to have a look as well.
 

raisinwing

28DL Regular User
Regular User
Cool report, enjoyed reading that! Certainly worth a bit more noseying.

Coincidentally I was only reading about the Nelson Research Laboratories the other week, as I believe it was a kind of sister site to the complex up near Kidsgrove?
 

Fuzzball

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Cool report, enjoyed reading that! Certainly worth a bit more noseying.
Coincidentally I was only reading about the Nelson Research Laboratories the other week, as I believe it was a kind of sister site to the complex up near Kidsgrove?

Thanks! I'm not from a computer or programming background myself, so this was and is new to me. It seems like there's only one or two people recording this history as well, so it's one of those cases whereby we'd have nothing to go on with if they hadn't done the original research. Cool! What else did you find out? Anything related to this place? Or maybe some other facilities that may still exist in some form? Kidsgrove was where the production model of DEUCE was built, and sold by EE, I believe. Now it's the Nelson Industrial Estate, which seems to be mostly houses. By the way, this was a DEUCE being tested in the Beaconside/Beacon Hill Nelson labs, though i'm not sure where this particular room would have been in that three-winged complex.

871786


Absolutely, i'm going to nose some more, seems worth it potentially! It's such a fascinating history anyway, I'd forgotten just how rich Stafford's history is. You had two large asylums there, there's a prison, loads of factories, there's the MoD, the research labs, even a frickin' secret WW2 manufacturing base.... and it's quite a small place, is Stafford!
I really miss the Nelson Library. I first listened to and got into the electronica duo Boards of Canada while studying there, and their tracks are all about science and nostalgia. Plus the Library had a "tech dungeon" where obsolete video and film kit was kept, it was a dusty old room adjacent to the staircase to the basement/tunnel. A friend and I played one of the UMATIC tapes we found at the abandoned RAF Honiley / Lucas labs in Warwickshire. It was a tape depicting a wireframe animation of an engine and was made in 1982! Really cool.
Damn... I miss that library. I spent like two years in that building on mini adventures!!

Anyway, rambling aside, I'd like to find out if there's other entries to the tunnel and its current status, plus whether there's any further plans or images of the Labs. Be nice to have some further info to add at some point and give a bit more visually to the story. Post if you find anything too!
 

BSTB

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Hi there, came across this fantastic thread via Google images and the information/photos you provided have been invaluable for my research. I too was a student at Beaconside between 2009 and 2016 and since closing, I have spent a great deal of spare time trying to preserve the memory of the campus for all those students who studied there. I've been gathering as much reference material as possible to help me build the campus in 3D as a sort of historical preservation multiplayer application.

My background is Film Technology and I too had the chance to go down those tunnels back in 2012 when we could still get permission. We shot some cutaways for our music video assignment down there.

It's amazing what you can find on the internet. It was hidden, but I found this Floor Plan a while back that shows the position of the tunnel basement, in relation to the ground floor.
Blueprint.png

And the stairs you mentioned but there were also a second set of stairs in the canteen room on the other side of the library.
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Another old photo, probably from the late 70s? After they demolished two thirds of the Nelson building and turned the remaining wing into the library. No Octagon, No Ruxton, No TV Studio or Stafford Court Halls.
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One of the production stills we took while filming the music video (I can't find the actual video online right now)
MusicvideoStill.jpg


Some classmates on the film course also did one of their assignment films down there too, back in 2011.

Of all the reference material I could find online, the Nelson Library is the most scarce. Once my project is complete, it will be freely available but in the meantime, here's the Facebook page.
 

Fuzzball

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Hello!
Nice! Really enjoyed reading your reply and extra info! I do like a nice bit of floorplan action! good find and that archive photo with the amended NRL labs is fantastic, very crisp image. That stairs photo takes me back as well. Good times. I didn't realise/remember there were other rooms in the basement either.

I checked-out your FB page. That's a good project, as you have the historical value of the campus site and the work undertaken prior to and during it's time as a college/uni, plus there's the student-experience aspect which also appeals, (especially to sentimental fools like me!). Good luck with it all and hope you have plenty of archive support!
Will all the building interiors be recreated in some way, or select ones of particular historical/nostalgic interest?

Great to see the tunnel being used for a creative project such as that short film, as it's excellent for that sort of tense/claustrophobic thing! I think the uni was cagey about letting everyone know about the tunnel, so it was pot-luck who you asked and when you asked. While down there I did find evidence of projects though, such as a mutilated Victorian doll which may have been used for a horror film, it has been suggested.

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Incidentally, the Library (when it was the uni) had it's own extra attractions, such as the "tech dungeon" which was located on the ground floor near the basement stairs. This room had all sorts of film and video related kit and media (including a film projector using the rare 9.5mm film format and Beta SP players. In 2008 I rescued a Umatic player from an old studio and took it to the tech dungeon to play out some Umatic tapes I'd found discarded in RAF Honiley. The dungeon was a fascinating resource, even though it was completely separate to the Film and TV department and so little known-about. I gather that an enthusiast had donated the assorted tech to the uni and it was occasionally used for various personal projects. The 9mm projector contained a film seemingly depicting 1920/1930s Paris. Now that the library is a school/nursery, I wonder what happened to all the tech... Below is a still from a little video I put on Youtube of the day I used the Umatic in there. Apologies about the potato quality.

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Judging by your plan and my recollections, it was a room in this area:

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BSTB

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Thanks for the reply! And no problem. Fascinating information as well regarding the old film/video tech! There's currently a lot of old tech on display behind glass cabinets in the Mellor Building at Stoke Campus, mostly computer related and magnetic tape backup systems. Not sure where the film stuff ended up, I really hope it's still at the university.

The floorplan I shared above was done by an external company I believe after it was sold for renovation in 2014. However, a few years ago I actually found a collection of the campus blueprints archived on the uni's website (thanks to the WayBack machine) and these showed a major change in room allocation which I believe occurred over the summer of 2012?
NelsonAlternative.png

The above floorplan is probably the layout you remembered for the ground floor and as it also appeared when I was at the university (before 2012). It seems the cluster of film and editing rooms were consolidated into a single Quiet Study room :(
StudyRoom.png

No need to apologise for the quality! I find it fascinating, like a snapshot in time. Very much like this 1980s video made at the campus when it was a polytechnic!
It shows the inside of the library as well as a few exterior shots before it was clad in yellow brick (probably the only detailed close up I can find that shows how the building looked in its NRL days. In the 90s, when the Octagon was built, they slowly began updating the look of the campus to match which made sense considering the institution has attained university status.
beaconside.jpg

The library was the first original site building to get an update (on the exterior anyway) but then in 2008 they pretty much completed the entire yellow brick upgrade apart from the small section above the canteen randomly. Same angle(ish) but 40 years apart. I actually remember visiting the campus when I was at school to use the DT facilities and I strongly remember when the campus looked like it did in the left hand image.
BeforeAndAfter.png

There were a few other buildings that never got an exterior upgrade like the Aston Common Room, the day care centre etc

I agree with you completely about the nostalgia and I find it so interesting to look back in time at a place that was a large part of my life growing up. Thank you for taking a look at my project and your contributions. I'm hoping to get more information/pictures of the campus spanning each decade since it was built. I eventually hope to have every interior modelled and interactable but I think in the first instance, I'll release the project with just placeholder exteriors and some interiors. I also want to do a "time machine" feature where the player can go back in time to the campus as it appeared in the 60s, 70s etc. :)
 

Fuzzball

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Ahh great reply! Some more interesting nuggets!

That archive film from the 1989 is wonderfully bizarre! Must have been some campus in-jokes weaved inside it's batty narrative. And a Monty Python reference of course.
1989 looked sooooooo long ago now! Though the library curiously looks exactly the same as it did when we were there. A campus pickled in 1970s to 1990s goodness.
Brings back memories seeing the old buildings as well before the brick cladding went up as I started there. The yellow-brick cladding at much needed uniformity and a modern, more vibrant feel. The campus always had a slightly empty feel though. Quite atmospheric wondering around it when it was empty and all the lights were on at 3pm.

Now, it makes sense regarding the floorplans as I couldn't work out where the tech dungeon would have been until you posted the other floorplan. Now I remember that there a few edit suites which used to be booked out apparently, though I never saw those rooms or knew much about it all.

The Aston Common room remains, though boarded up and abandoned. And in fact, as another side note - the original accommodation block as pictured on your black and white aerial shot is also currently abandoned. The main 90s-built accomodation Halls complex (which looks like and indeed WAS designed by a prison architect apparently) is occasionally in-use, though it's suffered from vandalism and neglect now that it's not a Halls anymore.

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As for the campus back-in-time, maybe somewhere in the depths of the Stafford Council offices there's the floorplans of the labs as they were and stuff from when the buildings were first constructed. There has to be some record!
 

BSTB

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Ahh yeah, I recall recently driving past the campus and noticed the Aston Common room boarded up. About a year ago, I visited the area when the windows were still intact. Of all the places on campus, Aston has remained a mystery to me. There are no floorplans that I can find online and no interior shots anywhere. I never lived in Halls so can't recall ever going inside.
DSC_0017.JPG

DSC_0173.JPG

DSC_0170.JPG

DSC_0171.JPG

DSC_0022.JPG

Therefore, I had very little to go off when I built the interior section. It's probably completely wrong inside so I imagine this will end up being changed a lot after others (who have been inside) eventually see it.

There was always that rumour about Stafford Court Halls being built by a prison architect. I always found it funny how a few of the students wardens got a power trip out of patrolling and telling students off. It's no wonder the student wardens at Stoke now have the title of "Resident Life Coordinator".

I remember little bits of the library layout prior to the change. Me and my classmates were looking for a suitable interrogation room for a film assignment and enquired about using a room in the library (this was in 2010). It really is interesting to see how the campus changed its look throughout the decades. I know what you mean about original floorplans and records, they have to exist somewhere. I mean, I assume when an organisation puts a planning permission request in, the local authority hangs on to all architectural plans?

I know what you mean about the video, the inside of the library is exactly how I remember it! Apart from lacking computers but the book shelves, the carpet etc all the same. The bit with the student exiting the library appears to be this part without the yellow brick This means the entrance to the tunnels would have been more directly accessible back then I assume? When I was at the uni, I never went through this door but did use the staircase near it. I can't remember seeing the entrance. The only time I went down was through the smaller stairs in the canteen area. My memory is a bit fuzzy to be fair.
NelsonOutside.png


Having said that, the University must still have archives and old records somewhere. I really want to do some digging because there are so many questions that I need answered to satisfy my curiosity. I'll definitely keep this thread updated whenever I find something new!
 

numpty

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Wow, I remember the Library building looking like that in '89. I was at Staffordshire Uni from 87-91 (Electrical and Electronics Engineering), and distinctly remember a "pit" opening up in the car park tarmac of Blackheath. This is when it was still the computing centre, pre-Octagon. Some story was spun about an inspection pit, but it was more than likely part of the cut 'n' cover tunnel. Lots of the building look very MOD, with the pierced (asbestos-riddled) ceiling and wall tiles everywhere. The photography club was based there, with a decent darkroom in a cupboard under a staircase.

I wish I'd known about the tunnel back then.

The picture of the equipment under test looks more like a high voltage transmission test rig in one of the labs. There's a substation and lots of HV ceramic/glass insulators.
 

SteveG76

28DL Member
28DL Member
The hv part of the labs survived until around 2015.
It was Alsthom/Areva R&D technology centre based at generators site. 2005 lost many of it testing abilities when it transferred to St leonards site as the Areva technology centre (High Voltage group) Alstom later took it back on and further downgraded it when by relocating to France.
I worked within HV materials group, filament winding lab which survived until 2018 after going back to generators site.
 

use465789

28DL Member
28DL Member
@Fuzzball Thank you very much for this, it was very interesting to read. I was a student at Stafford campus between 2012 - 2015 and also heard stories about the tunnels. I had never come across any definitive proof until this, so I had always wondered if it was true. I used to go up and down that staircase in the Nelson library all the time and often wondered what was in the basement that was cordoned off at time, I would never have guessed that you could access the tunnel from the library!

The only things I can add are couple of extra points of potential interest, I remember someone mentioned to me that the tunnels had originally extended under the area where the octagon would later be built and that in that area there was some sort of 'control bunker' used/intended to be used during the cold war in some capacity. I also remember being told that the tunnels extended all the way to the main MOD base and at were large enough for HGVs to drive in.

I had always dismissed these details as being somewhat far fetched and I'm still very skeptical of there actually being some sort of bunker under the octagon. But your post and the information regarding the Nelson laboratories has made me think twice now!

Specifically the fact that the Nelson laboratories originally had three wings, with the farthest from the remaining one being very close to the current site of the octagon... I can't quite work out from your photographs of the tunnel but was there any evidence of the tunnel being blocked off in the direction of the octagon? I suppose even if there wasn't it could be conceivable that there was separate access to other tunnel(s)/another part of the tunnel system in either of the two now demolished wings...

This is really fascinating to think about, I'd be interested to hear if anyone had any further thoughts/info to add to this.
 

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