Category: Hidden London

Features, Hidden London, London, UK, UK surprises

Underground secrets proving a hit

More of London’s secret underground world has been revealed.

After visiting the Churchill war rooms on our last trip to the English capital, we were fascinated to hear about guided tours deep beneath the city.

clapham

The ‘Hidden London’ tour program has been organised by London Transport Museum and has proved a big hit.

According to the museum’s website, all but one of the tours has been sold out until September.

Apparently, the secret world beneath London has really caught the public imagination.

Some hints of this underground world can be seen at street level – the odd ventilation shaft or drain cover might lead to an abandoned military bunker or one of London’s 13 subterranean rivers.

However, the Hidden London program actually takes people to little known areas such as the lost tunnels at Euston Station; the deep World War II shelter that sits forgotten beneath the broad expanses of Clapham Common; and Winston Churchill’s secret underground station at Down Street.
Churchill secretly took refuge at Down Street station during the height of the Blitz bombing raids on London in World War II.
The station had operated as part of the Tube to 1932 before it became a bomb-proof bunker.

89219713_downstreethidden_tfl_321_original1

Located between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park stations, Down Street was covertly transformed into the Railway Executive Committee’s bomb-proof bunker.

As well as a secret air raid shelter for the Prime Minister, the narrow tangle of tunnels also served as the nerve centre of England wartime railways.

P1010163

Photo: Memorable Destination

Additional photography tours of the dark and deserted passageways under Euston Station have also proved popular with Instagrammers.

120px-Down_street_map_1912

If the Hidden London tours are half as interesting as the Churchill War Rooms, it is a worthwhile venture indeed.

The program is yet another exciting initiative by London Transport Museum  and we are keen to review the tours and let you know the outcome.

Another prominent underground city exists beneath the countryside near the English city of Bath.

Photo credit: Photos courtesy London Transport Museum. Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.