Harper Hill Tunnels.

I came across references to a tunnel system which is said to exist below Harper Hill back in 1999 when I came across information relating to the site in a magazine. At that time the tunnels were being used for storage by Christian Salveson, since that time the site and tunnels have changed hands and are now owned by the French company Norbert Dentressangle. The information is as follows : While some underground facilities now cater for tourists, some lesser known sites have been adapted for commercial use. Take the hills around Buxton in Derbyshire for instance.

These are honeycombed with miles and miles of underground tunnels and caves. During the Second World War, they were used to store munitions produced in the region, but one site, at Harpur Hill, south of Buxton, is now used by Christian Salveson as a huge cold storage facility.

The tunnels here extend over 30 miles, Salveson’s only use 8 miles (to store wine and cheese), and during a visit to the site, one of our readers spoke of coming across what looked like a sealed blast proof door, made he believes of steel, but certainly “at least eight inches thick”.

While many still pour cold water on the idea that Britain is riddled with a vast network of underground bases and tunnels, who would have believed that a 30 mile tunnel network exists in the county of Derbyshire alone?

Interestingly, the underground site at Rhydmwyn, near Mold, Clwyd, which was a key chemical weapons production and storage facility during WWII,and which stockpiled chemical weapons until 1959, has usable passageways which stretch over 60 miles. Dr Tim Jones, who wrote a paper about Rhydmwyn which appeared in the Clwyd Historian (Spring 1966), carried out much of his research at the Public Records Office at Kew. It’s claimed that when he returned to Kew to conduct further research, he was told he could no longer have access to the files.