When I heard the news that a supposedly Pre-World War II tunnel have been found at Gambier street. One could have wonder the amount of treasures that could be found in those hidden chambers. Either I’ve been watching too much National Treasure or The Mummy, but you can’t deny the fact that there could actually be something of value.
Despite the numerous report that was done by Padungan assemblyman Dominique Ng to stop the demolition of this underground chamber, it was apparently filled up yesterday. Taken from “Chamber filled when PKR monitors turn their backs – The Borneo Post” KUCHING: Padungan assemblyman Dominique Ng was taken by surprise
yesterday when the contractor for the demolition of Gambier Street
Market resumed the work as early as 7am.
As Ng, who is from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), and his men were not
at the site to continue their ‘monitoring work’ – which was done in the
past 10 days – the contractor managed to fill up the ‘underground
chamber’.
This made PKR effort to station its men at the construction site -
which Ng claimed should be preserved under the National Heritage Act
2005, ever since the ‘underground chamber’ was discovered on July 13 -
a futile effort.
It is said some PKR men, including Ng would be at the site from 8am daily until the contractor’s workers were done for the day.
However the Sarawak Heritage Society (SHS) sent a team over to examine the place and concluded that this is just a common infrastructure that was used as a foundation for the building. By saying so, thus ends the whole conspiracy of the underground chambers that could lead up to Astana or Fort Margherita. But if what they say it’s true then probably this post would end here right now. But if you allow me to speculate that, what if these foundations were actually secret tunnels. And these tunnels were actually used as escape routes in case either the Astana or Fort Margherita was under siege.
As history states that The Astana was built during 1870 by Charles Brooke as a gift for his wife, while Fort Margherita was also built by him in 1879 to pretty much fend off pirates during those time. When I googled up Escape Tunnels and found out that “Throughout the British Isles and much of northern Europe escape tunnels were often part of the intrinsic design of fortified houses and palaces. The tunnel would typically be one half to two kilometers long and open in a location not readily visible to attackers.“ But one could argue that, maybe that Charles Brooke might not need an esacpe tunnel after all since he’s well guarded in his palace. But maybe he could have actually planned for all these during those 10 years while constructing both The Astana as well as Fort Margherita. Thus explaining these so called foundations were made to support the buildings that were built during the 1900.
Will we see anything inside these ruins? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. As there were a lot of cannons were found here locally in Borneo. As most of them were believed to be used for trading with villagers for herbs and spices back then. But in this case, Sarawak was invaded by the Japanese during 1941. One of my assumption is that, probably what could have happened when Vyner actually fled to Australia. He was not able to bring all his artillery with him. Maybe he could have order his subordinates to hide these artillery inside these chambers and probably seal up the entrance to prevent the Japanese from finding these weapons for their own usage. But Vyner Brooke returned to Sarawak during 1946 to resume his duties for about 3 months before he ceded Sarawak to the British government as a crown colony. But during these 3 months, could he actually transport all the artillery back to London? One must remember when James Brooke came it was during 1838 where he set foot on Kuching and managed to help the Sultan of Brunei to maintain peace and order with the locals as well as fending off pirates back then.
Maybe for Vyner Brooke back then could probably say to himself as these items did not belong to him and maybe it wasn’t any much of value anyway. So he could have left it there and not trouble himself to pack everything and go. But then again, who knows if these foundations are actually foundations to support the buildings. This is what I heard from my neighbors that, the shop is actually above the river which explains at times why the walls are always damp whenever we put a new fresh coat of paint. And also, when the flood came early this year the drain started to overflow.
Honestly I was a bit disappointed when they decided to demolish the site without trying to make an effort to actually go dig down there and see if there are any ancient artifacts just to please the opposition party and maybe the public for once. Who knows if there were actually ancient artifacts, it probably could help boost the tourism rate here in Sarawak. If nothing is found, then I guess, during the next parliament sitting in the new DUN, everyone would have a good laugh. But to developers, for them I guess they would say that if they were to continue to delay the project it would incur more loss. So is this probably one of the reason why developers hate opposition party. As they always tend to get in the way one way or the other. Lol. Either that, there could be a bigger conspiracy theory that they were trying to hide something and maybe keep it for themselves later.
Anyway, whatever reason that maybe. Please take note that whatever I wrote up here is just a mere speculation on what could actually be found hidden in those chambers. But if SHS said that it’s just a common infrastructure then I guess there would be no point continue carrying forward talking about it. Since I was super free today, I decided to come up with this theory just to keep myself satisfied. Coming from a background where I used to hate history back in school, I’m kinda amaze how my perception for history has kinda changed ever since I work here in the shop. As history plays an important role in our lives, not only we learn from our forefathers. But also learn to appreciate for all the things they did for us. Anyway, I hope this post would enlighten your day and who knows they might make a movie out of this underground chambers. Oh well, it’s all good. You guys have a good week.
