Smugglers tunnel in Milford on Sea

We recently received this interesting letter:

My name is David Mogg, a grandson of the Mogg family who lived in Milford on Sea from around 1900 to 1970. I now live in Australia.

My father was Ivan Mogg, one of the 12 children of Frank Mogg. My granddad, Frank, owned Milford Nurseries in Kivernall Road. He also had two shops in the village, the greengrocers, which was then opposite The Crown Inn pub (Now called the Smugglers Inn), and a second shop which was a flower shop opposite the newsagents. I was their paper boy in the 1950’s.

I have vivid memories of Milford Nurseries. I lived in the old house with my mum and Dad and played around there as a kid so knew it well. A point of interest which very few people know about, is the smuggling operations which went on historiclly in the village. It appears it was a very sophisticated set up. In the nursery garden near the house was a well. This well was very deep you could just see the water at the foot, and a stone dropped down it took some time to reach the bottom before we heard the splash. The most interesting thing about this well was that it had iron peg steps going down it. My uncles filled the well in in the late 1950’s. But before they did, uncle Howard climbed down to have a look. About 20 feet down there was a tunnel which went off to the East, it was all beautifully built in curved bricks as was the well itself. Uncle Gerald, the last of the brothers who died last year, tried to get some photos of it, but by the time he had gone home for his camera they had filled it all in. My brothers and I were never able to explore the end of the tunnel, but I'm convinced that it would come out in one of the older houses along the fence line.

The nurseries were sold in the late 1960’s to a building company. When the bulldozers started work digging foundations for the houses, they soon unearthed part of this tunnel. It ran right along the back fence of the houses on the eastern side of the property. This was quickly filled in, as if the historians had found out about it, work would have to stop due to the potential historical value. Near the corner of Kivernall Road and De La Warr Road, just off the road on the nature strip, you can still see the depression in the grass where the well was. At the sea end of De La Warr Road the cliff top was then a lot wider and a track went down to the beach wide enough for a horse and cart, this is still known as Paddys Gap. A local transporter known as Paddy used this to collect the smuggled goods being unloaded onto the beach and took them to our well to hide. It was then distributed around at their leisure. An excavation might still be rewarding.

David Mogg

Note from Editor: I wonder if the ‘Mole Men’ discovered the tunnel when excavating their subterranean city?