Clapham South Deep Shelter

At the weekend, JTA and I – along with our eldest child – explored the Clapham South Deep Shelter as part of one of Hidden London‘s underground tours, and it was pretty great!

A circular tunnel with a flat floor and low ceiling, wrapped in white-painted iron and concrete, with exposed wiring and WWII-era signage, leads deeper into a subterranean bunker past a small guard post in which a figure can barely be seen, reading a book.
Anybody else get Fallout vibes from this place?

I’ve done a couple of bits of exploration of subterranean London before: in the service tunnels around Euston, and into the abandoned station on the Aldwych branch line. But I was especially impressed by the care and attention that had gone into making this particular tour fun and engaging.

Broad staircase reminiscent of those found around the London Underground, but sparsely lit and decorated. Looking up the stairs, it ends in a brick wall.
Had this deep shelter gained a second life as a new tube station, as was originally hoped, this staircase would have connected it to the Northern Line platforms. Instead, it ends at a brick wall.

The site itself is deep: trains on the Northern Line – already one of the deepest lines on the London Underground – can be heard passing above you, and any noise from street level is completely gone (even the sounds of bombing couldn’t be heard down here, WWII residents reported). It’s also huge: long interconnected tunnels provided space for 8,000 beds, plus canteens, offices, toilets, medical bays, and other supporting architecture.

Table with basins, kidney bowl, old-style medical vials, kettle, jug, and WWII-era shrapnel dressing kit, in an iron-framed subterranean tunnel.
Significant parts of the bunker contain original furniture, including the metal-frames triple-bunk-beds (some of which show signs of being temporarily repurposed as archival storage shelves). But other bits have been restored to make them feel contemporaneous with the era of its construction.

To extend the immersion of the theme even further, there’s a “warden” on-site who – after your 179-step descent – welcomes you and checks your (replica) night admission ticket, identifying which bed’s bed assigned to you. The warden accompanies your group around, staying in-character as you step through different eras of the history of the place! By the time you get to the interpretative space about the final days of its use for human habitation – as a budget hotel for the “Festival of Britain” national exhibition in 1951 – he speaks fondly of his time as its warden here and wonders about what will become of the place.

In an extremely long semicircular concrete tunnel, a tween girl wearing a green hoodie stands near signage made to look like 1940s newspapers.
The long, long double-helix staircases that brought us deep into the earth represented only a fraction of the distance we walked on the tour, through these long networks of tunnels.

All of which is to say that this was a highly-enjoyable opportunity to explore yet another hidden place sprawling beneath London. The Hidden London folks continue to impress.

Small pink replica ticket reading 'Clapham South Shelter: Admit One Person for One Night Only', ticket number L0281.
I’m glad I’ve got a bed of my own in a house of my own that’s not being bombed by the Luftwaffe, actually, thanks.

If you want to see a little more, they’ve released a video just yesterday: or for the full experience, see if there are any slots you can make to visit the place for yourself.

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Order of the Beast

Went to Wagamama. Accidentally made the “Order of the Beast”.

(Plus a similar side, for those who read binary.)

Wagamama restaturant placemat on which the waitstaff has written my order item numbers: 110, and 666.

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