London Transport Museum is now taking bookings for this year's exclusive Hidden London tours that provide access to locations that are normally off-limits to the public.
The Kingsway tram tunnel was once the most important stretch of tram track in London, linking together extensive tram networks in north and south London. It closed in 1952 but over half of the subway still exists, complete with original features. This tour takes visitors on a journey through the remaining tunnels and reveals how the former Holborn tram station served London.
Throughout the roaring twenties, Frank Pick's Piccadilly Circus was London's busiest. Going behind secret doors, visitors will see deserted passageways, original Edwardian design features and lift shafts, and learn about successive renovations that have taken place over the last century.
Visitors can walk under Trafalgar Square to explore exclusive areas of Charing Cross station that are not accessible to the public. Disused parts of the station will be visited, including the Jubilee line platforms that were closed in 1999 but have since featured in many famous movies and TV productions including Skyfall, Paddington Bear, TV's Killing Eve, and A Spy Among Friends.
Discover Aldwych's abandoned ticket halls, original lifts, tunnels, abandoned platforms, and inter-connecting walkways, while learning about its varied history, from providing shelter to Londoners during the Blitz to being used for film and TV including The ABC Murders, Darkest Hour, Sherlock, and Atonement.
Down Street station on the Piccadilly line only had a short life as a working station from 1907 to 1932, but became critical to winning the Second World War when covertly transformed into the Railway Executive Committee's bomb-proof headquarters. Visitors can experience the maze of narrow tunnels where the nation's railways were coordinated, and where Prime Minister Winston Churchill secretly took refuge at the height of the Blitz.
Shepherd's Bush was once the busiest station on the network, as the original western terminus of the Central London Railway, today's Central line. Visitors will how the station has changed since it opened in 1900, how a then-new ticketing system became an ancestor to the present-day Oyster card; and view original Central line design features that remain frozen in time.
Tours of Moorgate will relive the early days of the Tube's construction when the first tunnels were dug, Moorgate's original glass tiles, abandoned tracks, and a complete Greathead shield from 1904 still in situ.
Underneath Euston stations is a labyrinth of dark and dusty passageways where visitors will be able to view a gallery of vintage advertising poster fragments that have been concealed for over 50 years that have been preserved and learn about the newest innovations to the station that serves over 42 million passengers each year.
Beneath Clapham South station visitors will see a secret subterranean shelter from the dark days of the Second World War where south Londoners found refuge during the blitz. These underground passages were built to accommodate over 8,000 people and had several canteens, medical stations, and sleeping quarters. It was also a temporary home for the first Caribbean migrants after having arrived in Britain on the HMT Empire Windrush.
Above ground, visitors can discover hidden parts and little-known facts about Covent Garden, Kingsway, Lincoln's Inn Fields and Victoria Embankment, and there will also be tours of Holborn, York Road, and Elizabeth line stations at Tottenham Court Road and Liverpool Street.
At last year's Tiqets' Remarkable Venue awards, the Hidden London tours were named ‘Best Hidden Gem in the World'.
Tours will run from 29th March until the end of August and all tours can be booked online at www.ltmuseum.co.uk/hidden-london
Anyone who wishes to know more about the subterranean world beneath London's streets can do so until July at the Hidden London exhibition in the Global Gallery at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. The exhibition tells the history of some of London's most secret spaces belonging to the oldest subterranean railway in the world and features many archive photographs, objects, artworks, diagrams, and heritage posters about London's disused stations.
