Wansford tunnel was used in a James Bond film (Image: CptBilBeard, CC BY-SA 4.0)
An incredible tunnel in England is so recognisable, it’s even been in a James Bond film.
The railway tunnel at , Cambridgeshire, was featured in the 1982 Bond film Octopussy, in a scene where carriages are shunted.
A dramatic gun battle between hero Bond, played by , and villain General Orlov, played by Steven Berkoff, also played out near the entrance to the tunnel.
It was also used in a Queen music video, for the song Breakthru, with the train that the band is riding apparently crashing through a brick wall.
However, while the shot of the train approaching the brick wall is filmed from within the tunnel, it appears that the exterior shot was filmed elsewhere, under a railway bridge rather than a tunnel.
The tunnel, around 500m from the old Wansford Station, was completed in June 1845 as part of the railway line between Northampton and Peterborough.
According to : “The tunnel was constructed in seventeen months by 1,000 navvies camped in a disused quarry in the parish of Elton.”
The line was once double track, but today it only has a single track running through its full length. There is a siding within the tunnel, entering at the eastern end.
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The tunnel is made of coursed rock-faced limestone and freestone dressings. There are Romanesque details with two roll-moulded and chamfered orders springing from attached columns with cushion capitals.
The tunnel is now part of the preserved Nene Valley Railway (NVR), which as a whole has been used in several films, TV shows, adverts, and more. The new station of Yarwell Junction opened to the public in 2007.
The hamlet of Sibson lies atop the hill through which the tunnel is bored, approximately six miles west of Peterborough. It has a population of just under 500.