Hobby tunneling is

tunnel construction Tunnels are dug in types of materials varying from soft clay to hard rock. The method of tunnel construction depends on such factors as the ground conditions, the ground water conditions, the length and diameter of the tunnel drive, the depth of ...

as a pastime. Usually, hobby tunnelers dig their tunnels by hand, using little equipment, and some can spend years or even decades to achieve any degree of completion. In some cases tunnels have been dug secretly, and only discovered by chance.

Motivations

A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through the surrounding soil or rock for the purpose of transport, passage or communication. Tunnel construction is a sub-discipline of

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

and usually the domain of

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

s and construction companies. When civilians dig tunnels, it may be for criminal purposes (like

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

or hiding illegal goods), or gaining unauthorised access to an area. People may also build

escape tunnel An escape tunnel is a form of secret passage used as part of an escape from siege or captivity. In the Middle Ages, such tunnels were usually constructed by the builders of castles or palaces who wished to have an escape route if their domains ...

s, such as those under the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. Tunneling may be part of the building of underground dwellings. Subterranean construction may be done as an art form, as in the work of Ra Paulette.

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

Leanne Wijnsma digs short, shallow tunnels as an art form and for fun. She had dug thirteen by 2015, three at cultural festivals.

Hobby

A few people have dug tunnels as a hobby or for fun, although some have given additional reasons for their activities.

Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996)
– was an American

Harrison Dyar saw digging as a form of exercise. Some hobbyists started out constructing something useful, but continued digging after completion. This was the case with William Lyttle, who started by digging a wine cellar,, Retrieved through Google Books, 6 June 2020. and Michael Altmann, who excavated a cooling cellar for a café. A Swiss contemporary of Altmann named Peter Junker dug in his garden, searching for water, but continued digging after finding some, excavating a tunnel length of . Others maintain that they excavated for a particular purpose, although their tunnelling effort seems out of proportion to the stated purpose. Dyar biographer Marc Epstein thinks it is mainly outsiders that desire a sense of purpose. On Dyar's tunneling for exercise reasons he says that "it’s almost unfathomable, the amount of energy it would take" and that "it still doesn’t add up". Author Will Hunt thinks extensive tunnelling is at least part obsession. Psychiatrist Anton Tölk believes that tunnel digging can be interpreted as a desire to return to the security of the mother's womb, and that as an activity it allows

contemplative In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with religious practices such as meditation or prayer. Etymology The word ''contemplation'' is de ...

satisfaction.

Notable cases

Michael Altmann

Between 1958 and 2008,

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n Michael Altmann dug two tunnels of combined. At first, he wanted a cooling cellar for a cafe he was to open, but upon completion he could not get a permit. In 1965, he took over another bar, but kept his digging as a hobby. Altmann would mainly use a pickaxe for digging and occasionally explosives, after passing an explosives handling examination at the fire department. He dug a second tunnel branching off from the first one, using a tunnel drilling machine he designed and built himself. In 1962, he installed steel doors on the tunnel system and added a store of emergency rations, with the intention of making it usable as a

nuclear bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

. In 2008, Altmann reached a block of granite and, considering his age, gave up tunnel digging.

Lyova Arakelyan

Lyova (or Levon) Arakelyan dug a storage cellar under his house on the edge of

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...

in 1985. When completed, he continued to dig and kept at it for some 23 years, constructing an extensive complex of tunnels, rooms and stairs which extended deep into solid rock. Arakelyan stated that he received directions for his work in dreams and visions. The underground spaces were transformed into a museum, called 'Divine Underground', after his death in 2008. Arakelyan never made any money from his tunneling in life, and the museum provides some income for his family.

John Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland

The 5th Duke of Portland is known to have been a hobby tunneler, although he did no digging himself that we know of but rather had workmen build his tunnels. An extensive network of underground spaces was constructed at his

Welbeck Abbey Welbeck Abbey is an English country house near the village of Welbeck in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire. It was the site of a monastery belonging to the Premonstratensian order, and after the Dissolution of the Monasteries a residen ...

estate in the 19th century, with a total length of around .Eatwell, Piu (2015); ''The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue'', New York. Retrieved throug
Google Books
6 June 2020. It included hallways, a ballroom, a billiards room, a library and a tunnel from the mansion to the riding house, wide enough for several people to walk in side by side. Some of the spaces were lit by

lightwell In architecture, a lightwell,light well, light-well sky-well,skywell, sky well or air shaft is an unroofed or roofed external space provided within the volume of a large building to allow light and air to reach what would otherwise be a dark or u ...

s and at night by

gas lighting Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a fuel gas such as methane, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directly by ...

. Most of the spaces that are known as 'underground' are, more correctly, 'below ground', constructed in a

cut-and-cover A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two Portal (architecture), portals common at each end, though ther ...

technique. Few of the tunnels and rooms were ever used for their intended purpose. Towards the end of his life, the Duke lived as a recluse and very few people got to see him. Spaces that were intended for social gatherings, such as the ballroom, were never used. But the Duke did frequently use the tunnels that allowed him to move about his property mostly unseen.

Seymour Cray

The American engineer and

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

architect

Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996)
– was an American

Harrison Dyar

The American

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

Harrison Gray Dyar Jr. Harrison Gray Dyar Jr. (February 14, 1866 – January 21, 1929) was an American entomologist. Dyar's Law, a pattern of geometric progression in the growth of insect parts, is named after him. He was also noted for eccentric pursuits which includ ...

constructed a network of tunnels on two occasions, with a length of combined. His first, under his

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

home was accidentally discovered during construction work in 1917, without drawing much attention. It was rediscovered in 1924, when a truck sank through the pavement nearby. The tunnel system led to speculation in the press, not in the least because many German newspapers from the war years of 1917 and 1918 were found in the tunnels. After a few days Dyar came forward as the tunnels' constructor, claiming he had dug them between 1906 and 1916, when he relocated to California. Back in Washington a few years later, Dyar dug out a second set of tunnels under his new home. The network had concrete lined walls, steel staircases and electric lighting. Dyar described hobby tunneling as a kind of exercise for him, saying "some men play golf, I dig tunnels".

Baldassare Forestiere

In 1904, Sicilian immigrant Baldassare Forestiere bought a plot of land in

Fresno Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

for

horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

. The

hardpan In soil science, agriculture and gardening, hardpan or soil pan is a dense layer of soil, usually found below the uppermost topsoil layer. There are different types of hardpan, all sharing the general characteristic of being a distinct soil layer ...

soil however, was unsuited for the fruit trees he intended to plant. While working elsewhere, Forestiere dug a maze of underground and below ground spaces to escape the summer heat of the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; Spanish language in California, Spanish: ''Valle de San Joaquín'') is the southern half of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an importa ...

. He opened up ceilings to let in light and below he planted the fruit trees he wanted in the first place. The complex consists of bedrooms, living spaces, patios, a fish pond and hallways. After his death in 1946, some of the land was sold off and some tunnels filled in, but currently about have been saved. It is known as the

Forestiere Underground Gardens The Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno, California are a series of subterranean structures built by Baldassare Forestiere, an immigrant from Sicily, over a period of 40 years from 1906 to his death in 1946. The gardens are operated by membe ...

and has a listing in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Glen Havens

Glen Havens of

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, US constructed a maze of tunnels and caverns under his house. Havens started out in 1949, enlarging his barbecue pit, but ended up digging roughly of tunnels and underground rooms. Havens enlisted the help of his son and other children in the neighbourhood, who earned pocket money in the process. The underground complex was large enough to hold his daughter's wedding reception in 1960, with some 200 guests attending. Havens ignored building regulations and never got any permit. Local authorities recommended that people not to go inside, but took no further action. A local restaurant is named the "Haven Pizzeria" in Havens' honor.

William Lyttle

In the 1960s, Irish civil engineer William Lyttle dug a wine cellar under his Hackney property. Having done so, he said that he had "found a taste for the thing" and continued digging for forty years. Eventually, several tunnels on multiple levels led in all directions, under the property and surrounding grounds, some of them long. After complaints by neighbours, a power supply interruption and a

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...

in the pavement, the borough had a survey carried out that revealed the extent of the tunneling. Lyttle was evicted and the tunnels were filled with concrete.

William Schmidt

William "Burro" Schmidt was an American miner who spent 38 years drilling a tunnel through solid

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

. Construction began in 1902, with Schmidt claiming to be building a shortcut from his mining operation to the

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...

. When a new road was constructed, rendering his shortcut obsolete, Schmidt carried on his work regardless. He used simple handtools and occasionally explosives for tunneling, carrying out the debris in a wheelbarrow or on the backs of his two donkeys.

Others

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

n miner Manuel Barrantes has built an underground family house, consisting of hallways, bedrooms, conference rooms and a bathroom. The complex, totalling , is used as a home and a museum. The

Williamson Tunnels The Williamson Tunnels are a series of extensive subterranean excavations in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, England. They are thought to have been created under the direction of tobacco merchant, landowner and philanthropist Joseph Williamson ...

are a network of tunnels in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, England, thought to have been dug under the direction of tobacco merchant Joseph Williamson between 1810 and 1840. Their purpose remains unknown, with some speculating that they were built as a

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

. In

Butler, Pennsylvania Butler is a city in Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is north of Pittsburgh and part of the Greater Pittsburgh region. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,502. Butler is named after Major General ...

, US man Ron Heist created a 50-room dwelling made of salvaged materials from abandoned places in the vicinity. It includes several tunnels Heist dug out and reinforced himself. A documentary film was made about him, entitled ''Mole Man''. In 1984, Russian Leonid Murlyanchik had the plan of digging a tunnel towards the house of his beloved Ekaterina. However, after Ekaterina's son objected to the liaison, he changed his intention into building a subway system for his home city of

Lebedyan Lebedyan () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Lebedyansky District in Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, located on the upper Don River (Russia), Don River, northwest of Lipetsk, the administrative center ...

. For 27 years Murlyanchik spent most of his hours, and his pension money, on the project. At his death in 2011 he had completed of tunnel, which was subsequently closed off. In late 2003,

steeplejack A steeplejack is a trade (profession), craftsman who scales tall buildings and structures to carry out repairs or maintenance. They are sometimes also involved in new construction, as well as demolition. Processes and techniques Steeplejacks ...

and television personality

Fred Dibnah Frederick Travis Dibnah, (28 April 1938 – 6 November 2004), was an English steeplejack and television personality. Having a keen interest in mechanical engineering, he described himself as a "backstreet mechanic." When Dibnah ...

began to dig a replica coal mine in the back garden of his home. Using traditional shaft-sinking techniques and the labour of mining friends Alf Molyneux and Jimmy Crooks, the shaft was sunk to a depth of 20 feet (6.1 m) and lined with brick. The work had been undertaken without planning permission, and, when the council eventually found out what was happening, they insisted he apply for planning permission. Dibnah died in 2004. 'Sandland' is a tunnel complex in western

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

created by Eric Sutterlin, a contract mechanical engineer from the

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

area. Sutterlin began digging tunnels in the

Jordan Sandstone The Jordan Sandstone is a geologic formation in Wisconsin. It preserves fossils dating back to the Cambrian period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as ...

after purchasing the property in 2011, aided by a network of volunteers in the years since. Sutterlin estimates that as of January 2025, he has contributed more than $100,000 of his own money in developing Sandland. Designed to be an underground crawling maze, the tunnel complex contains a number of turns, dead-ends, and even hosts an underground bar. Future additions are slated to include an underground slide and a standing-level maze section. The site also hosts a number of aboveground attractions, including a decommissioned monorail from the

Minnesota Zoo The Minnesota Zoo (formerly the Minnesota Zoological Garden) is an Association of Zoos and Aquariums, AZA-accredited zoo in Apple Valley, Minnesota. The zoo is one of two state-supported zoos in the United States, with the other being the North Ca ...

and a treehouse, the latter of which was moved to ground-level for safety reasons. In 2015, a tunnel was discovered in a

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

park. After a few days of speculations in media, the use as a terrorist hideout being among them, young construction worker Elton McDonald came forward as its builder. Asked for the purpose of his digging, he answered "Honestly, I loved it so much. I don't know why I loved it". YouTube personality and inventor

Colin Furze Colin Furze (born ) is a British YouTuber, engineer, and inventor from Stamford, Lincolnshire. Furze left school to become a plumber until he performed on the Sky1 programme '' Gadget Geeks.'' Furze has since used his plumbing and engineering e ...

has constructed an underground bunker and tunnel system under his home and workshop in Stamford, Lincolnshire, initially in 2015 as part of a promotion for Sky television's ''

You, Me and the Apocalypse ''You, Me and the Apocalypse'' is a British-American comedy-drama miniseries. The series was green-lit on 8 January 2015. It debuted on Sky 1 on 30 September 2015 and on NBC on 28 January 2016. Sky 1 said in March 2016 there would be no sec ...

'' series. TikTok creator Kala, or @engineer.everything, has been in the process of creating a tunnel system underneath her suburban home since August 2022.

Press coverage

Several

urban legend Urban legend (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not. These legends can be e ...

s or even

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

es involving private tunnels have appeared in media. One such a story is about an Irishman who dug a tunnel from his bedroom to his local

pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

, without his wife noticing. In one version of the story, that did the rounds at least between 2014 and 2018, the tunneler is said to have used a spoon for digging. When a tunnel in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

was discovered in 2016, a local newspaper ran a

do it yourself "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, wikt:modification, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals ...

tunneling manual as a story. The 1997 novel '' The Underground Man'' is loosely based on the life and tunneling of the 5th Duke of Portland.

References

{{Reflist Tunnel construction Hobbies