The age of the train

Eight thousand years ago the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine. And if the cities had actually existed, you would have been able to walk from London to Rome without getting your felt-bound feet wet. Since then, geology has given us the Channel, a practical and psychological barrier that defines national identity.

The idea of a tunnel beneath this barrier dates back to the Treaty of Amiens 1751. Here reach exceeded grasp and the first realistic — although the word is used loosely — proposals were made to Napoleon by a mining engineer, Albert Mathieu, in only 1802. Mathieu wanted to turn the mid-Channel Varne bank into an island, with shorter tunnels going north to England and south to France. Nothing came of it. Channel tunnelling first became a science with Thomé de Gamond (1807–75), who inspected the seabed in a diving bell, but his diligent research brought no practical result.