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Haunted Grove Tunnel - OK03DF
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Altitude: 88 m. ASL.
 Region: United Kingdom (UK) > Kent
Cache type: Traditional
Size: Micro
Status: Ready for Search
Date hidden: 09-03-2017
Date created: 09-03-2017
Date published: 09-03-2017
Last modification: 13-06-2017
2x Found
0x Not found
0 notes
watchers 0 watchers
8 visitors
2 x rated
Rated as: n/a
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Cache attributes

Available 24/7  Parking nearby  Public transportation  Drinking water nearby  Public restrooms nearby  Public phone nearby  Park and grab  All seasons 

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Description EN

This is a story told to me by a friend, it is written as it was told to me:

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This story started when I was much younger. My dad was an engineer and worked at West Station in Tunbridge Wells. I remember being driven down to the bottom of the town to collect him after work, as it was usually quite late at night when he finished. After the railway and station had been closed down when I was twelve years old, he told me some stories of things that had happened in one of the tunnels.

 

The tunnel in question was Grove tunnel and sat in the far corner of the station. This tunnel was opened in 1876, so it's pretty old now. It used to have a single line rail track running through it with a signal box just outside. I think it was created to link the Hastings, Lewes and Eastbourne lines. The station and the railway were closed in 1985 and since then, a Sainsburys and Homebase have been built on the land. The station house is still there, but is now a pub and restaurant.

 

Back when my dad worked there, they used to have a problem with tramps and homeless people finding places to spend the night out of the cold and rain. They usually kept to the normal places of shelter and the guys working for the station would sometimes do a walk around the land and tracks and move them on. They'd always return though.

 

There came a point when some of the homeless people realised that Grove tunnel was the perfect place to spend the night. The main reason for this was that in the tunnel, there are safety points for the workers to take refuge when the trains come through. These are effectively recessed holes in the wall of the tunnel, but in Grove Tunnel, they are much larger than normal. These were therefore the perfect place for someone to make their overnight home out of the rain. The station workers were obviously concerned people may be in the tunnel and it was a big safety issue.

 

One day, the body of a homeless man was found in one of the recessed safety points. My dad was told that he was found sitting up, eyes wide open with a look of sheer terror on his face. From what I could get from my dad, there was never any explanation over how the man died. From that point on, the issue with homeless people accessing the tunnel stopped altogether; no-one else was ever found spending the night there.

 

A month or so went by with nothing out of the ordinary happening in the tunnel, but all that was about to change. Two workers (I don't know their names, but I'll call them Matthew and Ralph) were in the tunnel checking something, when there was a need to take shelter as a train was about to come through the tunnel. They had lamps or torches with them, I'm not sure which they used, so they easily found the safety recess; each person taking a different one to give themselves more room.

 

As the train was entering the tunnel, Ralph felt a strange sensation; the pressure around him changed and the atmosphere seemed to drip with cold (I know a lot of people will say this is because of a change in pressure due to the train approaching and entering the tunnel, but Ralph told my dad he'd never experienced anything like it). As the train was approaching the man, he felt as though he was being pinned down by something; he said it felt like two hands bearing down on his shoulders, pushing him down into the floor. The more terrifying feeling was when he felt the pressure start to push (rather than pull) him out of the safety recess. He had a real concern he would be pushed into the path of the oncoming train, so instinctively cried out and scrambled to keep himself in the recess as the train passed. The pressure stopped once the train had gone past.

Matthew came running over to him to see if he was ok. Even in the light of the torches, Ralph could see the concern on Matthew's face, and seemed as shaken as he was. When Ralph explained what he had felt, Matthew looked shocked and explained how when the train was approaching, he looked over to where Ralph was and saw another man crawl into the recess with him.

 

Ralph was dumbfounded; there had been no-one there with him, all he had felt was the pressure which felt like two hands bearing down on him. When the two men returned to the station and spoke to the other workers, they joked it must have been the ghost of the homeless man wanting his alcove back. Matthew later gave Ralph a description of the man he saw. Even though there was limited light, Ralph said the man looked dishevelled and 'tramp-like', with a terrible look on his face.

 

From that point on, many workers felt strange things in the tunnel and there were reports of people being pushed, scratched and hit, the cause of which could never be explained. Towards the end of life of the station, repair and maintenance of the whole railway including Grove tunnel was reduced and eventually stopped, leading to poor conditions of the track beds. Due to this and the impending demise of the station, the tunnel wasn't accessed very often.

 

Another story told to my dad was by someone who was doing some work in the signal box which was situated just outside the tunnel. He told my dad how he'd seen weird things in the mouth of the tunnel, sometimes appearing to be a person and then something like a swirling mist. He went to investigate but nothing could ever be found. This helped to perpetuate the belief that the tunnel was now haunted.

 

Since the station closed and the plot of land redeveloped, the train tracks have been removed. However, Grove Tunnel still exists and sits behind the coach park and is accessible if you know where to go to get round the huge fence. There's graffiti as you would expect with an isolated area of the town, but bizarrely it only exists in the mouth of the tunnel; as you go deeper, the vandalism stops.

 

The story of the homeless ghost has become a not very well known local legend in the bottom end of the town, and some of the teenagers from the estates near the tunnel see it as a sort of rite of passage to spend time in the safety recesses. I've heard a few of them talk about how they've had similar experiences and have literally been assaulted by an unseen force while in the tunnel.

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The cache is on the metal side of the bridge. You can see the tunnel by crossing the road and looking over the wall. You are looking for a metal camo bison. Please bring your own pen.

 

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