The measurement of displacement of rock mass near the face during tunnelling will enable us to better predict the deformation of the tunnel using numerical modelling. It will improve the safety in tunnelling and the design of the support. However, such cases are very few due to the high cost and difficulty in mounting without interrupting the construction cycle. To overcome these problems a specially-designed simple rock extensometer which can be mounted quickly at the tunnel wall was developed with a low cost. In this paper, the design, data acquisition system and some field applications of the simple rock extensometer are described.