{"id":3115,"date":"2012-08-16T12:02:59","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T12:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetimechamber.co.uk\/beta\/?page_id=3115"},"modified":"2017-04-01T14:42:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-01T14:42:50","slug":"tunnel-road-sand-mines-reigate","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thetimechamber.co.uk\/beta\/sites\/underground-sites\/tunnel-road-sand-mines-reigate","title":{"rendered":"Tunnel Road Sand Mines, Reigate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along the Tunnel Road cutting in Reigate there are a number of caves dug into the hill; they are sand mines that date back to circa 1820 and were used up to circa 1900.\u00a0 The sand had two purposes; for glass manufacture and for scrubbing.\u00a0 When the mining ceased the caves were used for a variety of uses; cordite from Woolwich Arsenal was stored their during WW1, wine merchants stored wine and disposed of empties there, during WW2 it was used as a shelter for locals and people travelling down from London and the caves are used by a local shooting team today.<\/p>\n

Due to the high quality of the sand, many locals excavated under their homes to supplement their incomes – which led to many subsidence incidences.\u00a0 The two notable ones are when five cottages disappeared into the ground from a collapse and when the cricket pitch fell through due to another collapse (no one was injured or killed in either incidences).<\/p>\n