The Channel Tunnel

The latest way to travel between the UK and France

The Channel Tunnel that connects England to France is one of the engineering marvels of the age. However, it has had a long and troubled history.

A stop-start project

The first proposal for a fixed link by tunnel between the two countries was made as far back as 1751, when a French farmer named Nicolas Desmaret came up with the idea. However, it was not 1802 that anyone took it seriously. Again it was the French who proposed making such a connection, but when war broke out between the two countries in 1803 the plan was put firmly on the shelf.

Suggestions were made several times during the 19th century, but it was not until 1875 that anything actually happened. It was in that year that the British and French governments passed laws to enable work to start, and this began in 1878 with borings on both sides of the Channel.

However, public opinion took against the idea in 1882, when people in Britain got the notion that the French could not be trusted not to use the tunnel to mount an invasion of Great Britain. The work that had already been done was therefore abandoned.

During the 20th century there were several proposals to revive the idea, and in 1967 it looked as though something would actually…