Ancient Web: Entrances2Hell Catalogued Britain's Imaginary Underworld

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Britain has a lot of peculiar infrastructure. The pipes, vents, holes, and concrete enclosures are especially suspicious if you have decided they might all lead to Hell.

Visit the Catalogue of UK Entrances to Hell.

The homepage calls itself a constantly updated catalogue of infernal entrances in and around the United Kingdom. It carries a copyright line naming J. H. Irvine and 2002. There is a map of sorts, rankings of popular entrances, visitor letters, and a news service that is determined not to let reality interrupt the reporting.

It is satire, not a genuine directory of dangerous supernatural locations.

Field reports from a very strange country

The first listed entrance is Belkell, in Romford, Essex. The author admires its pipework and ductwork, supposedly made by moon-dwelling salamanders, then helpfully reports that the radiation trace is nil. A reader could mistake the layout for a small amateur tourist guide right up to the point where the description becomes impossible.

The news page develops a larger invented mythology. There are warnings about sinister musical releases, heated arguments with people who claim the entrances are fake, and statements from the site's self-important Compiler-in-Chief, Dr Rae Gates. One story describes the danger of blancmanges and advertises a defensive gadget. Other entries promote posters and safety information with precisely the tone of a municipal announcement nobody asked for.

Those details make the joke more than a single photograph of a drainpipe. Entrances2Hell treats an expanding imaginary organization as if it had staff, research methods, controversies, and a mailing list of concerned observers.

The site also invites photographs and correspondence. As with many independent comic sites, the visitor is invited to become an accomplice by proposing or reporting the next ridiculous landmark.

The old navigation has survived: each entry has a next link, while the news page sends readers back to the main index. Some linked maps, shops, and audio releases may no longer function. The readable HTML preserves the central conceit and a wonderfully sustained mock-official voice.

Before social platforms taught jokes to travel as detached screenshots, a webmaster could keep an entire fictional world under one domain and expect readers to explore it.

Begin with Belkell and then explore the news desk.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.