“Some people say there are two Londons – the cobbled city streets where the aristocrats travel about in their coaches, and the stinking slums where no gentleman or lady ever sets foot...

But I say there’s a third one.  And it’s under your feet right now”

 

Toshers work in the maze of sewers under Victorian London, sifting through the slime and muck for coins and treasure. They wear long greasy coats and carry lanterns and a pole with an iron hook. It’s against the law to enter the tunnels without permission, so they work in secret, slipping into sewer entrances at night to wade through the miles of secret rivers that flow fiercely under the streets.

 

“You need to be brave and clever and carry the map in your head at all times. But most of all you need to be lucky, for a sudden flush can fill up the tunnel and drown you, or you can hit a pocket of exploding gas and bring the roof down - or worst of all stumble into a pack of sewer rats lurking in the shadows…"

Jerry, Tosher, 1842

 

There’s even talk of of a Queen Rat, a giant black monster who, if she likes the look of you, takes the form of a beautiful girl and offers to help you find whatever it is you’re looking for. At a price...

But that’s just a story, isn’t it?

 

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Try it For Yourself – Interactive Sewer Maze!

 

“They won’t let us in to work the tunnels,” one sewer-hunter complained in 1842, “as there’s a little danger. They fears as how we’ll get suffocated, but they don’t care if we get starved!”

 

Always wanted to know what it was like to work down a Victorian sewer but never had the opportunity?

Well now’s your chance. Penny Dreadful will be will be working with a computer scientist specializing in live interactive technology, and building a sewer maze in the Deptford Albany!

 

Put on the kit and enter the tunnels. Guess which way NOT to go by the smell of methane, the roar of an approaching flood, or the sound of scurrying rats. If you somehow manage to avoid the dangers and not get hopelessly lost you just might be able to locate the treasure, a ball of gold and silver coins fused together, known as a ‘tosheroon’- and worth a fortune!

 

Are you brave enough?