Who built the tunnels?
For the sake of brevity, most people say that ‘Williamson built the tunnels …..’. However, it wasn’t really Williamson himself, but rather the thousands of workers he eventually employed who did the work. Probably beginning with a number of abandoned quarries which had long existed on the plot of land he adopted, Williamson designed the tunnels and gave construction orders to his workers. At first, the workers were largely unskilled labourers but, if you look at the 35 years or so that the project lasted (until Williamson died), many of them no doubt became highly skilled in brickwork and stonemasonry. It is believed that a good number went on to work on other contemporary projects such as the pioneering railway building of the early/mid-18th century.
