More about the smugglers' tunnel

Many thanks to John Williams for this newspaper cutting.

The Mamhead Estate has a documented history dating back to the Domesday Book.
There are even stories that an ancient village of Mamhead once existed in the present grounds at Mamhead Park but concrete evidence has not been established.
Rumours also exist of an underground passage running from Mamhead House to the old estate kitchen gardens at Brinshill. These may indeed have some substance since smugglers are said to have been active in the area a lot landing contraband at Hele's Dock near Dawlish Warren and taking it via Port Road to various hiding places round the Mamhead estate.

Starcross Smugglers?

Here's a picture of the entrance to a tunnel which goes for around 2 miles and exits in Starcross...and also goes up to the Mamhead obelisk. Read about it on the Devon Sculpture Park's website.
The Devon Sculpture Park

The entrance is disguised, not very well, as an ice house.

Ice houses were usually placed near to the kitchens, but this ice house is a long way away from any house. It sits incongruously in the middle of a field. Surely, the customs men would have twigged it?

Experienced cavers say that this tunnel is not safe to explore. After all it might be a couple of hundred years old.

Does anybody have any stories to tell about this tunnel: where it comes out and what it was used for?