Mysterious Underground Cave Network Found Beneath Shopping Building After Sinkhole Appeared

By | October 13, 2017

Many people in Thanet, Kent, England have been shopping in Primark - which first opened in 2011 - with absolutely no idea that a network of secret war tunnels, potentially over a hundred years old, was untouched and hidden beneath the bargain boots and cut price clothing.

The old army practice tunnels were thought to be used during WWI and WWII for training exercises.

The Primark in Thanet, Kent

The caves have been linked to a sinkhole which opened up in the Primark car park

The tunnels were first discovered by chance by owners of Westwood Cross in 2015, by chance after a subsidence.

The photos below, taken by local history group Thanet Hidden History, reveal the extent of the subterranean caves just feet below Primark shoppers.

Mystery still shrouds the existence of the tunnels. Back in 2015, Ravenside Investments Ltd - a subsidiary of Land Securities, which owns Westwood Cross -  requested a Freedom of Information from the Ministry of Defence (MoD). They were trying to track down records of the tunnels.

A representative asked for detailed maps of the underground network and wrote: "We have recently discovered tunnels underneath our property and have reason to believe these were created by the army during the First World War as a training exercise."

However, "no information" was held by the MoD and the true scale of the underground labyrinth remains unknown.

H/T Mirror