On this day in history : 1st December 1990 – Construction workers drill through the final half metre thick section of rock separating the two halves of the Channel Tunnel….
For the first time since the Ice-Age Britain and France are joined…. It was a feat of engineering that had taken two years….involving 13,000 workers and the construction of 95 miles of tunnels – averaging 150 feet below sea level…. 8,000,000 cubic metres of soil were removed; this equates to 2,400 per hour….
On the morning that the break through was made drilling started at 11am…. As soon as there was a hole big enough, construction workers Phillippe Cozette of France and Brit Graham Fagg shook hands and exchanged the flags of their respective nations….
Later a party of French delegates drove to Folkestone to get their passports stamped; a British group did likewise, by walking to Calais….
The Channel Tunnel was officially opened on the 6th of May 1994….
Cottage Capers 