It was astonishing how many underground passages we had heard of on our
journey. What strange imaginations they conjured up in our minds! As so
few of them were now in existence, we concluded that many might have
been more in the nature of trenches cut on the surface of the land and
covered with timber or bushes; but there were old men in Exeter who were
certain that there was a tunnel between the site of the old castle and
the cathedral, and from there to other parts of the city, and they could
remember some of them being broken into and others blocked up at the
ends. We were also quite sure ourselves that such tunnels formerly
existed, but the only one we had actually seen passed between a church
and a castle. It had just been found accidentally in making an
excavation, and was only large enough for one man at a time to creep
through comfortably.
There were a number of old inns in Exeter besides the old "Globe," which
had been built on the Icknield Way in such a manner as to block that
road, forming a terminus, as if to compel travellers to patronise the
inn; and some of these houses were associated with Charles Dickens when
he came down from London to Exeter in 1835 to report on Lord John
Russell's candidature for Parliament for the _Morning Observer_.
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