SUBTERRANEAN

Website: www.subbrit.org.uk (Subterranea Britannica)

Basement Extensions

Kensington & Council received 64 applications for basement extensions in 2003. Five years later it received 212.

The Charing Cross Road Trench

There is a utilities subway that runs from the statue of Edith Cavell to Tottenham Court Road. It has side turnings off it that are signed, as is the border between Westminster City Council and Camden Council.

There is a sign for Little Compton Street, a street that no longer exists.

Location: Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0JB (orange, brown)

The Northern Line Expressway

G(r)o(w)ing Underground

There are two 0.5km.-long tunnels that were used during the Second World War as aircraft shelters. They had been able to protect 8000 people. There are located 33m.-below one of Clapham's Underground stations. In 2018 they were being used to grow herbs and salad plants hydroponically in a vertical farm. The light came from l.e.d. lights. The degree of insulation from surface temperature meant that the temperature could be maintained cheaply.

Zero Carbon Food was founded by Richard Ballard and Steven Dring, two old schoolfriends.

Location: 1a Carpenter's Place, Clapham, SW4 7TD

Website: https://growing-underground.com https://zerocarbonfarms.co.uk

The Kingsway Tunnels

The Kingsway Tunnels (1942) complex in Holborn was built by the London Passenger Transport Board as an air-raid shelter. The public body did this at the government's behest. With an eye to the post-war world, the Board constructed the tunnels so that they could serve as part of its intended Northern Line Expressway. In order to try to keep the facility's location secret during its construction, non-English speakers were used as much as was possible. Sister shelters were constructed in Belsize Park, Clapham, and Stockwell. The facility had scope for housing 8000 people at a time. It was used for a variety of purposes including acting as a troop hostel and as a facility for the Special Operations Executive.

With the coming of peace, the Board declined to assume ownership of the Tunnels. For a while, the complex was used by the Public Records Office. Eventually, it passed into the ownership of the Post Office, which then had a near monopoly on telecommunications with in Britain. The space housed a trunk exchange for long-distance phone calls. This was charged with ensuring that the hotlines to Washington D.C. and Moscow were secure and operating at all times. It is reputed that, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the on-site staff locked themselves in the facility for a fortnight. The Post Office engaged in some excavations of its own to enlarge the amount of room that it had available. Within the Tunnels, there were street signs for its different sections. These bore names such as Cafeteria Alley, First Avenue, and The Dog s Leg.

During the 1980s advances in telecommunications technology made redundant the facility's role as an exchange. By the following decade the space was being used solely for storage. In 2009 BT, a company descended from the Post Office s telecommunications operation, put the Tunnels up for sale.

Location: 9 Holborn, EC1N 2HT (blue, purple)

South Bank Platforms

County Hall rests on a concrete platform (a raft) which rests on silt that had been dredged from the docks. The platform has the scope to rise and fall slightly in relationship to the degree of moisture below it.

The National Theatre was built on rafts so that it could float.

Location: County Hall, Queen's Walk, SE1 7PB

The Royal National Theatre, Upper Ground, SE1 9PX

Underground Playground

St Joseph's Catholic Primary School in Macklin Street has an underground playground.

Location: Macklin Street, WC2B 5NA (red, purple)

Website: www.stjosephs.camden.sch.uk

Urban Explorers

The anthropology of people who urban explorers (UrbEx) who penetrate subterranean London. Bradley Garrett wrote Place Hacking, a Human Geography Ph.D. at Royal Holloway, University of London.

David Backhouse 2024