Even the robots do it
Photo credit this guy, I gather it was taken during a 1950 renovation.
“Bo Peep Tunnel is a 1,318-yard-long (1,205 m) railway tunnel located between Bopeep Junction and St Leonards Warrior Square station on the Hastings line in East Sussex, England. Constructed by the South Eastern Railway (SER) between 1849 and 1850, the tunnel was opened to traffic on 13 February 1851.” Thus spake Leo, the AI associated with Brave.
It’s a railway tunnel. I went through it today. The only thing interesting about it is the name.
It turns out “bo peep” is much older than the nursery rhyme. It’s the medieval name for peek-a-boo, where you put a child on your knee, cover your face and go “bo!” then uncover it and go “peep!”
Grok tells me “This game is mentioned as early as the 14th century in legal records — for instance, in 1364, an ale-wife named Alice Causton was punished for short measures by being forced to “play bo pepe thorowe a pillery” (peek through the pillory holes).”
The nursery rhyme first appeared in print in 1805.
The connection to Sussex is said to be smuggling – this area was a hotbed of smuggling in the 18th C – but sources were vague on the exact meaning. Either revenuers peeping on smugglers or smugglers peeping for revenuers or some kind of shootout at the local Bo Peep pub. There’s still a Bo Peep pub in St Leonard’s (where there was once a dragon).
In one multi-paragraph information dump from Grok, every single citation was from Wikipedia!
Posted: November 3rd, 2025 under personal.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from RushBabe
Time: November 3, 2025, 9:41 pm
The provenance of that “Bo-Peep” phrase was pretty cool; the tunnel? Not so much. But kudos to you for keeping us informed! Busch Gardens (Williamsburg, VA) theme park has a pillory for photo purposes in its “England” section. We most definitely had our kids’ pix taken in that!
By the by, the linky to the current Dead Pool needs updated. I’d do it for you, but alas, I don’t have admin privileges, plus I’m a total nabob on all things technical.
Comment from Uncle AL
Time: November 3, 2025, 11:51 pm
SIDE BAR
Noteworthy technological advancement: The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunneling business, now is using a proprietary automated machine that completes one mile of tunnel per week. If done today, they could start the Bo Peep Tunnel on Monday morning and finish by Saturday noon.
The machine, the “Prufrock 4”, digs its own entrances and exits and installs the full sized prestressed concrete casing as it goes along 24×7, no stops needed. Also, no humans are needed in the tunnel, all controls are remote.
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: November 4, 2025, 3:20 am
My granny’s knickers. That’s where you found a spaceship come to earth from Mars! They’ve changed us to be their surrogates and indirectly ensure their race’s survival! If you’re not careful they’ll have all of London in an epic purge of mutants to cleanse the hive!
Get Professor Quatermass before it’s too late!
Well, that or Tooting Khan will become mayor.
And it’s already too late.
Comment from The Neon Madman
Time: November 4, 2025, 4:26 am
Uncle Al:
Now imagine such a machine, with a modular reactor for power, and some robots for physical work, all delivered to the moon by Starship. The result is a pressurized, radiation shielded Warren that becomes a sizable colony. Our childhood SF fantasies are all on the verge of actually coming true in our lifetimes.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: November 4, 2025, 8:40 am
Musk is that eccentric rich guy in all the sci-fi stories that actually gets us off the planet.
And the usual villains in the story, government and academia, are doing their part to stop him or slow him down until they can figure out how to co-opt his plans and gain control without being blatantly obvious.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: November 4, 2025, 11:27 am
Congratulations @ thefritz…
Dead Pool 190 is over!
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