NOW here’s a thing. If you’re on Carntyne Road, you could probably take a good guess at where you are as it’s all in the name.

Now pop into town, go down by the Clyde and stop at Tunnel Street.

Beneath your feet and below the ground and then under the river itself, there’s a tunnel heading north to south.

Back in 1895, Glaswegians just couldn’t stop tunnelling.

The great Subway around the city was on the way towards its completion and the pride and joy of the Glasgow Harbour Tunnel Company was about to open after five years of burrowing under the Clyde.

Westminster gave the nod to a pedestrian and vehicle tunnel between Finnieston on the north and Mavisbank Quay on the south.

In fact three five-metre diameter tunnels were built with the one in the middle for pedestrians and the others for horses and carts.

You may be familiar with the circular red brick buildings at either side of the river still standing tall today.

They were in fact pretty grand entrances to the tunnel and opened into a set of stairs for people traffic and hydraulic lifts for the horses and carts.

There was a bit of a stooshie when it became known the lifts had been built by the Otis Elevator Company of New York.

The chairman of the Harbour Tunnel Company rebuffed Glasgow’s engineering establishment and its criticism of using a “foreign lift company” by saying he wanted the best and he had got just that.

And so it came to pass that during the Glasgow Fair, on July 15, 1895, the harbour tunnel was opened for business.

But it was a business that never made the money anticipated and there were numerous reports of imminent closure.

In 1915, Glasgow Corporation stepped in with an agreement to make an annual grant with a view to potentially buying it outright at some stage.

That came in 1926 for the princely sum of £100,000.

At the same time, the Corporation unveiled its proposal for a new bridge over the Clyde at Finnieston and there was a very swift view the tunnel did not have much longer to operate.

However, the bridge was never built and the tunnel continued to serve the citizens of Glasgow.

In 1932 one of our colleagues on the Evening Citizen, now part of the Evening Times, wrote of the tunnel and his meander under the Clyde.

“The door of the passenger tunnel has long been disused and foot-passengers now enter by one of the four elevators for vehicles at the other side of the rotunda.

“Choosing the company of a horse and lorry as preferable to that of a motor-car, I soon found myself smoothly and quietly descending among a bewildering medley of wheels and cables, through which I could see the mouth of the old disused foot-passenger tunnel as we passed on the way down.

“At the bottom, water oozed through the iron sides of the great tube, which has never been totally watertight.

“At one place a single stalactite a foot long hung from the roof.”

Beautifully descriptive and writing that conjures up great images of the tunnel.

And so, the tunnel continued to function into the Second World War although in April 1943, there was a request to bring an end to horse-drawn carts as they were slowing down the growing number of motor vehicles.

The Corporation’s Master of Works had another view: closure. He had examined the tunnel and reported back to the city chambers “grave responsibilities would be incurred” if it remained open.

By September of that year, traffic was halted but pedestrians could still use the tunnel.

Long since abandoned, the tunnels are still there, 24 metres below the Rotundas.

The North Rotunda is open for business, but the proprietors would probably rather you don’t go wandering underground.