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General Post Office Tunnel Network [Glasgow]

City Centre, Glasgow, Lanarkshire.

Tunnels (mid 20th Century)

At the junction of Cathedral Street and North Hanover Street a curious standalone building once served as a lift shaft which connects street level to a series of tunnels. The expansive network runs from the Royal Infirmary to the telephone exchange, or 'Dial House', on Bothwell Street and runs beneath the city's subway lines. The telephone exchange is at the heart of the network and was commissioned by the General Post Office (GPO) to host the general processor for the west of Scotland. Built in the 1950s with the Cold War in m ind, the exchange was built to withstand a nuclear bomb attack on Glasgow. Rumours surround the web of tunnels with some claiming that they served as an escape route for GPO staff to a bomb shelter under George Square - although the rumour of a nuclear bunker or emergency room underneath George Square or the City Chambers is unsubstantiated. [Glasgow World]

The curious, stand alone building that sits at the junction of Cathedral Street and North Hanover Street. It's a small building that used to be decorated in iron cladding, but when the Galleries were built it was redecorated to blend in with the adjacent car park. It's a small building that used to be decorated in iron cladding, but when the Galleries were built it was redecorated to blend in with the adjacent car park.

And what looks like a building that services the car park ventilation or electrics is in fact something totally different. It's a lift shaft, which houses a vehicle lift down to a tunnel, no fewer than ten storeys deep. The tunnel runs all the way from the traffic island across from the Royal Infirmary to the old telephone exchange at the western end of Bothwell Street, underneath the subway lines and Queen Street low level train lines. Incredibly, this was part of wider network of link tunnels that joined each other and operated on various different levels and cover most of the city centre, with the telephone exchange tunnel at its heart. The old telephone exchange, or Dial House as it's known, was built in the early 1950s for the former GPO building to house the general processor for the whole of the west of Scotland.

Totally fortified and designed to withstand a nuclear bomb, it housed part of a network of Cold War telephone exchanges built across the UK. Meaning that if Glasgow was destroyed, the telephone network would be maintained.

Some who worked in the Dial House building were told that the tunnels also served as an escape route for staff to a bomb shelter hidden under George Square, one which was given further weight given the service tunnel that led to the Royal Infirmary (which could supply medical equipment). This confirms the assertion by former employees of the city council of the possible existence of a network of smaller tunnels accessed from the City Chambers, one of which runs from the Chambers to North Court Lane off Royal Exchange Square (a discreet exit point). Rumours also exist about the presence of a laboratory housed in the basement of the Dial House site (three levels down) which operated a jet wing component test facility in the years following WW2.

What is certain is that the tunnels were part of a wider network, some of which served to connect other GPO buildings in Glasgow city centre (with communication between them being a number 1 priority) , such as the old GPO Head Office on George Square and the exchange next to the Savoy Centre on Renfrew Street. The tunnel stretching to the old GPO building on George Square, which now houses luxury flats, once contained an automated narrow gauge railway line with a small train that delivered the mail and other goods to and from, one which passed straight underneath Central Station. This meant that mail taken off trains at Central was sent to each building without the necessity to take it to street level. The major banks in the city are also said to have been linked to the network, as conduits between the banks and various exchanges in the city, allowing for easy access to customer premises below street level. The clue to their existence also lies not just with the lift shaft at the Buchanan Galleries car park, but also via a network of cooling vents (painted dark green/grey), air shafts and emergency escape hatches, visible at street level throughout the city in places such as Washington Street, Cathedral Street, Hope Street and Blythswood Street. As the tunnels house such an extensive network of communication equipment, valves and copper cabling, constant cooling is required to maintain their operational function. Air is also blown through the tunnels to stop the risk of natural gas build up causing an explosion. Vents to spot in and around Glasgow, symbols as they are of a subterranean network of tunnels hidden from view and public knowledge for years; tunnels which, buried below the subway and low level train lines, deepen our understanding of our city in the Cold War era. [GlasgowLive]

Alternate Names: None recorded.

Notes: Given coordinates are for the access building.