Or go directly to the photo here but i would recommend a look through the finnieston photos there also one of the pedestrian tunnel amongst them.

There is a photo from 1896 of horses and carts entering and leaving a rotunda and one of the pedestrian tunnel. Enjoy! (thanks to Stef Robb for this one)

The Virtual Mitchell library has some pictures of the tunnel between the Rotundas. Click on the Area link (on the left) and then look through the Finnieston photos.

Sadly the pedestrian tunnel was closed on 4th April 1980. This tunnel is now only used for access to water mains. Both the vehicular tunnels were filled in in 1986. The North Rotunda is currently being used as a casino, while the South Rotunda is unused after having found brief uses as a "dome of discovery" and a Nardinis Ice Cream Parlour (replicating the original in Largs)during the Glasgow Garden Festival.

The next day it was 272, and the secretary of the Otis Company's London subsidiary reported that 'the horses generally have taken most kindly to the lifts, and are carried up and down without trouble. Carters said that by avoiding the steep inclines at the nearby ferries they could take five extra bags of flour per journey.

On the following Monday, however, when only half the hoists on each side were working, 218 vehicles used the tunnel during its opening period of 05.00 to 19:00 hrs.

It was on July 15, 1895 that the Harbour Tunnel opened for business. This was during the Glasgow Fair holidays, and traffic was light for the first week.

In each tower there were six segments of hydraulic hoist, three for up traffic and three for down. The hoists were provided by the Otis Elevator Company of New York, and the chairman of the Harbour Tunnel Company replied to criticisms from the Glasgow engineering establishment about the use of foreign machinery by saying that they were the best available.

Parliamentary approval had been given in 1889 for a pedestrian and vehicle tunnel under the Clyde between Finnieston on the north bank and Mavisbank Quay on the south. Three l6ft diameter tunnels were dug, with shields and compressed air, the centre one being for pedestrians and the others for horse and cart traffic. The entrances on both sides were circular brick towers, which contained not only stairs for pedestrians but also hydraulic lifts for raising and lowering cart traffic to and from the main tunnel level under the river.

THE FORGOTTEN TUNNEL: In 1895 Glasgow was in the grip of a kind of tunneling mania. The Central Station low-level line was being dug, the underground railway circuit was nearing completion, and the Glasgow Harbour Tunnel Company's pride and joy was about to be opened after five years of excavating under the Clyde.

That later date came in 1926, by which time the corporation paid out almost £30,000 every year to keep the tunnel and the passenger and vehicle ferries near by running. The tunnel passed into the city's control for a payment of £100,000. At the same time the corporation released details of plans for a new cross-river bridge at Finnieston, and it was expected that the tunnel would soon be closed. The bridge was never built. In 1932 a columnist in the Evening Citizen could still write about a journey beneath the Clyde:

Like many similar schemes, the Harbour Tunnel never produced the revenues its promoters expected, and from time to time they threatened closure. In 1915 an arrangement was reached with Glasgow Corporation by which the city authorities came to the financial rescue by making an annual grant, and being given in return an option to buy over the tunnel at a later date.

The Harbour Tunnel remains one of Glasgow's best-kept secrets: most people in the city, if they are even aware of its existence, thought it closed down long ago.

Despite the derelict appearance of the towers, and the fact that they seem to be no more than a roosting place for half the city's birds, the Harbour Tunnel is still open. The remains of the machinery in the great circular shafts can be glimpsed, and dimly lit stairways plunge eerily down alongside the hydraulic pipeline which took pressure from the south side to the north, to the main level below the Clyde.

In September 1943 it was decided to abandon the vehicle tunnels, and all the hydraulic equipment was removed. The passenger tunnel was to be retained, and £500 was earmarked for pumps to keep it dry.

The tunnel was still of some use to the city, although the ferries were far more popular with those whose business did not take them close to the city-centre bridges. Traffic increased again during the second world war, when dockers and shipyard workers were among the most regular users. In April 1943 there was a request that the tunnel should be restricted to motor traffic, since horse-drawn vehicles were causing delays. Glasgow Corporation, however, had far different ideas, since their Master of Works had recently made a thorough examination of the old tunnel and reported that 'grave responsibilities would be incurred' if it were kept open at all.

'The door of the passenger tunnel has long been disused, and foot-passengers now enter by one of the four elevators for vehicles at the other side of the rotunda. Choosing the company of a horse and lorry as preferable to that of a motor-car, I soon found myself smoothly and quietly descending among a bewildering medley of wheels and cables, through which I could see the mouth of the old disused foot-passenger tunnel as we passed on the way down. At the bottom water oozed through the iron sides of the great tube, which has never been totally watertight. At one place a single stalactite a font long hung from the roof.'