The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 ft (11 m) wide by 20 ft (6.1 m) high and is 1,300 ft (400 m) long, running at a depth of 75 ft (23 m) below the river surface measured at high tide. It is the first tunnel known to have been constructed successfully underneath a navigable river. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel, and his son, Isambard, using the tunnelling shield newly invented by the elder Brunel and Thomas Cochrane.
Inside the Thames Tunnel in the mid-19th century
A scale model of the tunnelling shield at the Brunel Museum at Rotherhithe
The Thames Tunnel excavation as it was, probably around 1840
An 1870 view of a train exiting the Thames Tunnel at Wapping
Rotherhithe is a district of South London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, with the Isle of Dogs to the east. It borders Bermondsey to the west and Deptford to the south-east. The district is a part of the Docklands area.
St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe
Howlands Dock in the parish of Rotherhithe (c.1850)
1895 accepted design for Rotherhithe Town Hall, view from Neptune Street and Lower Road
The Angel, a 19th-century pub in Rotherhithe now Grade II listed
