hidden underground station tours london

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Going underground: a subterranean tour of London's abandoned tube stations

Tours through abandoned Tube stations open a unique window onto London’s historic roots.

Standing on a strip-lit London Underground platform, I’m staring at the billboards across the tracks. Primary colours jump out above grimy rails. To the left is a placard for cheap holidays in the sun, to the right a poster for new West End play Diana’s Fortune. But the adverts are strangely vague when it comes to details. Holidays where, exactly? And why no mention of which theatre is staging the play?

“They’re all fake ads,” says my Hidden London guide, Pat Dennis, with a laugh, pointing out posters for fictitious estate agents and non-existent clothing brands. We’re deep in Charing Cross Underground station, at the heart of the capital’s transport network, but if we were hoping to hop on the next train we’d be in for a wait. “This platform has been out of service since 1999,” he says. “It was part of the Jubilee Line. Now it’s used for films, TV shows and music videos. We’ve had Matt Damon and Daniel Craig down here, Paddington, Madonna, Dua Lipa — you name them.”

The bogus ads, it transpires, help avoid any awkward issues over product placement. They also add to the discombobulation of entering a secret underworld. When Pat greets our group in the station’s ticket hall, we’re surrounded by a jostle of commuters and free newspapers. Then we step through an anonymous metal door and everything becomes real but unreal, with empty escalators, silent corridors and the far-off rumble of trains on other lines.

Over the following hour and a quarter, we get a full overview of this deserted wing of the station. We’re given the history of Charing Cross itself. We’re shown footage from Skyfall where James Bond slides down the same escalators we’ve just descended. We’re even taken into the cavernous dark of the ventilation shafts and construction tunnels, at one point spying through a grille, 007-style, on travellers waiting for a Northern Line train. It all feels fascinatingly clandestine.

the view of a tube platform through vents

This, of course, is very much the intention. Organised by the London Transport Museum, which funnels profits from tickets into its educational arm, these behind-the-scenes tours are run by Hidden London in eight different Tube stations. The visits make the most of the fact that multiple areas of certain stations are now disused, for reasons varying from low passenger numbers to rerouted lines.

“All the stations we visit have their own selling points,” says Pat, explaining that tours are scheduled for different stations at different times each year, to keep demand high. Many of these tours touch on the Second World War, when the tunnels doubled as air-raid shelters. Clapham South, for example, has more than a mile of deep-level passageways, while Down Street — which Winston Churchill used as a secret wartime bunker — was closed to passengers back in 1932, yet still exists, murky and history-laden, under the streets of W1. And while the defunct platforms of Charing Cross remain modern-looking, the concealed parts of Aldwych and Euston are time capsules full of period architecture and fading posters.

( 5 of north London's most scenic walking routes .)

I head to another station, Moorgate, for the next tour. It takes its name from a former gate in the old city walls, which looked out across marshland. Today the area is all commercial buildings and cafes, but the station has plenty of history. It opened in 1865 as part of the Metropolitan Line — the world’s oldest underground — and originally had gas-lit wooden carriages trundling along its tracks.

“The early trains didn’t even have windows,” says my guide Tommy Carr. “The logic was that there was nothing to look at in a tunnel, then they realised passengers liked seeing which stations they were stopping at.” The station was initially just a shallow one, created using the old-fashioned cut-and-cover method — digging a big trench, laying down tracks, then roofing it over again — before the deep-level underground arrived in 1900.

We venture into the belly of the station, stepping into a low-lit maze of maintenance tunnels and disused lift shafts. A tiled passageway closed since 1939 still bears fragments of adverts for soap and books; further on we’re shown an old tunnelling shield — a vast, hollow, metal cylinder lying on its side — created as a kind of protective sheath for workers, who stood inside it to hand-excavate the tunnels. Stretching 16 feet across, the shield was simply left there when work was completed.

Less than 90 minutes later I’m back in the fresh air, a little dazed. Today’s Tube is many things — functional, sprawling — and the sheer breadth and history of the network means parts of it are stuck in time.

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These London Tours Explore Abandoned Tube Stations And Other Secret Spots Of The City

Early 2024 tickets for the London Transport Museum's award-winning Hidden London tours will be released tomorrow (November 8).

Here at Secret London , we sure do love a bit of transport talk . Tubes , trains, buses , bikes; you name it, we’ve written (and had an extensive conversation) about it. So, you can imagine how enthusiastic we are about the London Transport Museum – and more specifically, their Hidden London tours. I mean, who doesn’t love discovering hidden gems of London’s historic Transport Network?

Luckily for us (and our fellow transport-lovers), the ever-so popular Hidden London tours will be returning to the capital at the start of 2024 , and you can secure your space as early as tomorrow (November 8). Yippee!

What is a Hidden London tour?

The historical experts over at the London Transport Museum have curated these fascinating tours based on the museums extensive archive and collection. The exclusive tours will uncover the whats, whys and whens of some forgotten London locations . You’ll be taken along by expert guides, learning interesting facts by the bucket-load as you go. A variety of tours are running from January 10 until the end of March , each giving a unique glimpse into London’s history .

Granting visitors behind-the-scenes access to locations on the transport network that are usually closed to the public, Hidden London tours were voted ‘ Best Hidden Gem in the World ‘ at the Tiqets Remarkable Venue Awards last year. So they’re certainly doing something right, hey?

What tours are on offer?

There will be seven in-person tours on offer, ensuring that there’s something for everybody to enjoy. Discover deserted passageways and original design details of Piccadilly Circus station or explore the exclusive (and usually, no-entry) areas of Charing Cross . Be transported back in time at Baker Street and adventure into the disused parts of London’s first underground station . Uncover a labyrinth of dark and dusty passageways in Euston , unveil the secrets of Shepherd’s Bush , or head underground to the subterranean WWII shelters, built deep beneath the streets of Clapham South .

A virtual tour, retracing the 160-year history of the London Underground will also be taking place and a new experience will be available; combining a tour of Piccadilly Circus with a delicious meal at the Hard Rock Café.

If all that still leaves you wanting more, super-fans can also subscribe to Hidden London Hangouts , a regular series hosted on London Transport Museum’s YouTube channel. Watch as the series takes viewers behind the scenes of some of the Hidden London tours , as they explore various nooks and crannies of the transport system and share their thoughts and findings. Count me in.

Find out more and book your Hidden London tour here .

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Explore London’s secret underground network on a Hidden London tour

Did you know that there were whole sections of London’s underground network that lay hidden in plain sight? At the London Transport Museum you can explore secret parts of London’s Underground Network on a Hidden London Tour

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You can now go on hidden London tours of secret tube stations

London Transport’s Hidden London tours take visitors to remote and closed stations and tunnels on the Underground

Londoners are suckers for the Underground. Sure, we moan about it constantly, but – like school, marriage and German cooking – if you can just look at it in a slightly different way, it can become magical. Specifically, we get a collective frisson as a city thinking about all the spooky shut-off tube tunnels, disused stations and plentiful ghosts below our feet. To speak to that romantic and spooky appetite, London Transport Museum has just announced a new season of its ever-popular Hidden London tours of unseen parts of the capital’s vast transport network, including some new places they’ve never visited before.

There are in-person and virtual tours available, so even if you live miles from London (or don’t fancy creeping about in a filthy warren), you can still be a tube explorer.

Highlights of the new season include evening tours of Charing Cross and Down Street stations. The Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross have been inoperative since 1999, and since used for lots of film and TV productions. Down Street station, meanwhile, you might not even have heard of. Located in Mayfair, it was shut down way back in 1932 because of low passenger numbers (locals presumably all travelled by Rolls-Royce). In WWII, it was used as an air raid shelter and, intriguingly, was used by Winston Churchill during the Blitz.

Another perennial favourite are the tours of Aldwych tube station on the Strand near Somerset House, and there are also in-person tours of Shepherd’s Bush station’s hidden nooks and crannies, and the same at Euston.

Virtual tours allow visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the new Elizabeth line stations at Tottenham Court Road and Liverpool Street, as well as a look at the closed Kingsway areas of Holborn.

So, you can spend a whole lot more time on the tube, if you fancy it. Do – it’s really worth it. But book soon – these tours always sell out.

Find more details of London Transport Museum’s ‘Hidden London’ tours and book places here .

Take a look at the sensational restoration of Battersea Power Station .

A first glimpse inside new Canning Town club space The Beams .

Chris Waywell Deputy Editor, Time Out London

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Inside the London Underground’s hidden tunnels where you can spy on commuters

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You can take a haunting tour underneath some of city’s busiest streets (Picture: Nick Edwards)

This major London underground station has a catacomb of tunnels deep under street level where explorers can get a glimpse of unsuspecting passersby.

The ghostly platforms that once served the capital’s trains have been long abandoned, but they were opened again in 2022 by the London Transport Museum.

Train fanatics can tour the haunted ancient passages, which still remain wholly intact, with a ‘time capsule of historic posters, signage and vintage tiles’ on display.

01/08/22 Pictured: disused area Shepards Bush underground station Mailonline are shown history of Shepards Bush underground station on the Central London in West London. Siddy Holloway,Engagement Manager at London Transport Museum shows Mailonline disused parts of the station that will soon be a part of an upcoming Transport museum tour.

Influencer Dan Thomas trekked down under street level to the passages, which were closed a century ago in 1924.

In a video posted on TikTok, the tunnels and platforms under Shepherd’s Bush station can be seen lit up, revealing the blackened concrete walls with dust clung to them.

Bunches of cables can be seen along the walls, looking very similar to the stations still used today.

@danthomasuk Hidden Shepherd’s Bush Tunnels! I visited these as part of a Hidden London Tour organised by the London Transport museum 🤓 For fans of Secrets of the London Underground, Urban Exploring. The closest I’ll get to being Tim Dunn, Siddy Holloway, Geoff Marshall, Jay Foreman, etc! #hiddenlondon #secretsofthelondonunderground #londonunderground #urbanexploring #siddyholloway #timdunn #londontube #shepherdsbush #danthomas #danthomasuk #london ♬ BILLIE EILISH. – Armani White

On the tour there are metal grates along certain sections, where eagle eyed visitors can spy on passengers on their journeys.

Shepherd’s Bush station was first opened in 1900 as the Western terminus of the Western terminus of the brand new Central London Railway.

The railway was seen as pioneering at the time, as it provided a transport link between the suburbs of West London and the City of London.

01/08/22 Pictured: Siddy Holloway walking in disused part Shepards Bush underground station Mailonline are shown history of Shepards Bush underground station on the Central London in West London. Siddy Holloway,Engagement Manager at London Transport Museum shows Mailonline disused parts of the station that will soon be a part of an upcoming Transport museum tour.

At the time, commuters could catch a tram from Shepherd’s Bush, which would take them even further with just one ticket.

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The tunnels aren’t completely derelict however, as they are now used as storage, to help with construction work, or as escape routes in emergencies.

Fans can also take tours underneath Euston, Charing Cross and Down Street station.

Down Street station has a rich history, and was used as a bunker by Winston Churchill during the Second World War.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected] .

For more stories like this, check our news page .

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Inside creepy hidden tunnel under UK’s busiest streets where you can spy on commuters – visitors wish they never entered

James Halpin
Published : 5:29 ET, Apr 16 2024
Updated : 5:51 ET, Apr 16 2024
Published : Invalid Date,

CREEPY hidden tunnels hidden under Britain's busiest streets allow visitors to spy on commuters.

However, many who have walked along the secret passages around one London underground station wish they had never entered.

A London transport guide walks in the tunnels of the abandoned Down Street underground station in central London

London Transport Museum opened the passages in 2022, allowing people to walk the abandoned sections of select tube stations.

Some of the tunnels have been closed to the public for decades - having been used for maintenance, storage, and evacuations.

One travel influencer, Dan Thomas , toured the tunnels underneath Shephard's Bush tube station.

In a TikTok, Thomas showed abandoned parts of the station including a large staircase used for maintenance and evacuations.

He also revealed a section of the station where you could see commuters through a metal gate.

Thomas said: "In quite a few places there are spots where you can spy on unsuspecting passengers."

Tourists might even catch a look of passengers evacuating a train walking between platforms.

However, most people who enter the secret tunnels are only there because of emergency evacuations.

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One 2016 evacuation saw roughly 350 passengers trapped inside the peak-time train for 40 minutes before train crews and police led them in single file back to a train platform.

Tourists walking through the tunnels will be surrounded by cables hanging on the wall, blackened concrete, and plenty of metal.

They might even catch a look at historic posters or signs from when an abandoned station was last in use.

London Transport Museum now offers the tours at 10 stations, including Piccadilly Circus, Baker Street, and Clapham South.

Baker Street will be popular with history buffs as the station includes 160 years of history and a look at the earliest days of the underground.

Meanwhile, Down Street has a bomb shelter that was used by Winston Churchill during WW2.

Charing Cross station will be a fan of film buffs as an abandoned platform was used in Bond, Sherlock, Luther and Bourne blockbusters.

Before the tours, most people who entered the area wished they hadn't as the tunnels were mostly used for evacuations.

Dan toured Shepherd’s Bush station, which was first opened in 1900 as the western end of the Central London Railway.

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In one clip, he can see commuters walking through a station in between he holes in a large metal grate.

The railway was seen as pioneering at the time, as it provided a transport link between areas of West London and the City of London.

Charing Cross filming location

CHARING Cross, near Trafalgar Square, is typically the go-to location for any tube-based scenes for films.

The station has an old Jubilee line platform that hasn't been used by travellers since 1999.

Now the old platform acts as a purpose built film set, with the likes of Daniel Craig , Idris Elba and even Paddington Bear filming scenes there.

Siddy Holloway, Engagement Manager for London Transport Museum's Hidden London , told Sun Online Travel why it is a perfect location to film any underground scenes.

She said: " Charing Cross is where we marry up underground history with pop culture because it is used extensively as a film set for Hollywood blockbusters.

"Skyfall was filmed there, Paddington, Thor, the Bourne Ultimatum, Luther, Sherlock Holmes and others.

"It's the old Jubilee Line concourse that closed in 1999 and so they can authentically create the atmosphere of the underground without disturbing passengers on the actual underground."

Clapham North's Deep-Level WW2 air raid shelter

London Underground

London Underground's hidden tunnels where you can 'spy' on commuters

T his major London underground station has a catacomb of tunnels deep under street level where explorers can get a glimpse of unsuspecting passersby.