People will make videos about anything these days – not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’ve used the Greenwich Foot Tunnel quite a few times over the years on my trundles around the metropolis, but have never given it much thought. The problem is, one of the two lifts is nearly always broken, so it’s often easier to scoot round to the DLR station if I want to cross the river up to Canary Wharf. However, I just came across this intriguing video about the tunnel’s history: it’s more fascinating (and spooky) than you might expect, growing out of the need of Victorian dock workers to get from South London to the Isle of Dogs. It was thus an essential means of combatting the crippling poverty of that era by helping people get to work. The irony is, these days it’s little more than a novelty and tourist attraction which locals tend to avoid. After all, can you see a top business executive heading to his Canary Wharf office through that dark, damp tunnel? Either way, it is through such snippets of history that I find London so intriguing.

I do wish they would fix those lifts though.