Bit late on posting this, but I've been going through photos from nights out with Suboffender back in the day and wanted to post it up as a tribute to him.
The history is pretty well known about these shelters; during WW2 the Home Office decided to build 10 deep level shelters for people to hide in. 8 were built, used for war stuff, then were passed off or leased out to various agencies or companies once the war was all wrapped up.
This is kinda how they were built, although this is an image of a cross passage at Clapham South, 1941.
My exact memory is a bit hazy, being 7 years on, but long story short we'd heard that Kev & Monkey had finally cracked a way down into Belsize Park. By this point we'd managed to tick off Clapham North, Clapham South, Chancery Lane, Goodge Street and Camden Town so the allure towards Belsize Park was high, especially with what we'd heard was hiding away down there. At this stage, Belsize Park was being leased out by a company called Abbott Data Store, a storage and warehousing company who also leased Camden Town DLS at the time. The rotunda surface building is fairly unassuming from the street, it doesn't have the same Fort Knox style character as the Eisenhower Centre above Goodge Street DLS, just a small office window into the reception and a cracked paint facade. Navigating any external cameras was easy, there simply wasn't any. This was still within the heyday of London exploring, when places could remain within trusted circles and not get blown up on Youtube and Insta, and I want to extend my thanks and respect to those involved in the community back then.
Suboffender, Extreme Ironing and I met up in a quiet cul-de-sac late on a Saturday night. There's no nightlife in that suburb which is both a blessing and a curse. Nobody on the streets to wonder why 3 dudes in high vis vests and tripods are climbing into an overgrown backyard, but also quiet enough that any untoward sound will draw the attention of any curtain twitchers in the vicinity. Negotiating our way through a locked gate we did one last rudimentary look around at the overlooking windows, checked the rope, and Suboffender went about rigging the first pitch.
He descended down first so that he could get started on the second pitch, the other two of us quietly making our way down the 30m shaft in slow pursuit.
Once at the bottom, we had to find our way out of the ventilation conduits into the tunnel proper, eventually popping our heads out of a manhole in the south stairwell. I tiptoed towards the base of the stairs, slouched still with bated breath to listen out for any movements above. After about 30 seconds I turned back to see what the others thought, and had Suboffender waiting for me with a litter picker aimed directly at my nipple. Needless to say, he had no concerns.
From here it was a nice chill trip, we manoeuvred our way around the complex although you couldn't really see shit for the heaps of boxes stacked up. The company's bread and butter may have been storage, but tidiness sure wasn't one of their strong suits. I'm sure someone knew how everything was organised, but anything which wasn't on racking was just piled up unceremoniously crushing whatever lay beneath.
It was difficult to see what original fixtures may still exist behind all the boxes, you could see the tunnel construction in some of the passages, but they seem to have mostly removed a lot of the bunkbeds and replaced them with racking.
We made our way up the central staircase towards what would have been the connection to the tube station sitting above us, passing piles of old bunk beds removed from elsewhere. The station connection was bricked up, but the old shutter gate had been left in situ.
There's only so many boxes you can look at, so we ventured down into the bowels of the shelter to find the electrical and ventilation rooms, as this is where the best parts were. Pushing the door ajar to see the glowing purple presence of the mercury arc rectifier was incredible. We all took turns in standing next to it, slowly cooking our eyeballs whilst trying to unsuccessfully capture it's beauty in photos.
And with that we were done, we meandered back through the tunnels towards our ingress, one last glance behind us and then ascended back up and out onto the street above.
I'm sure I would have thanked him on the night, but had it not been for the company and friendship of Suboffender I'd likely never have gotten around to seeing the place in that state. I was still pretty new to SRT and he taught me heaps over the years. Those who knew him know exactly how much of a liability he could be on explores 😂 but he was an absolute lovable bastard.
Cheers Joel, miss you mate.
The history is pretty well known about these shelters; during WW2 the Home Office decided to build 10 deep level shelters for people to hide in. 8 were built, used for war stuff, then were passed off or leased out to various agencies or companies once the war was all wrapped up.
This is kinda how they were built, although this is an image of a cross passage at Clapham South, 1941.
My exact memory is a bit hazy, being 7 years on, but long story short we'd heard that Kev & Monkey had finally cracked a way down into Belsize Park. By this point we'd managed to tick off Clapham North, Clapham South, Chancery Lane, Goodge Street and Camden Town so the allure towards Belsize Park was high, especially with what we'd heard was hiding away down there. At this stage, Belsize Park was being leased out by a company called Abbott Data Store, a storage and warehousing company who also leased Camden Town DLS at the time. The rotunda surface building is fairly unassuming from the street, it doesn't have the same Fort Knox style character as the Eisenhower Centre above Goodge Street DLS, just a small office window into the reception and a cracked paint facade. Navigating any external cameras was easy, there simply wasn't any. This was still within the heyday of London exploring, when places could remain within trusted circles and not get blown up on Youtube and Insta, and I want to extend my thanks and respect to those involved in the community back then.
Suboffender, Extreme Ironing and I met up in a quiet cul-de-sac late on a Saturday night. There's no nightlife in that suburb which is both a blessing and a curse. Nobody on the streets to wonder why 3 dudes in high vis vests and tripods are climbing into an overgrown backyard, but also quiet enough that any untoward sound will draw the attention of any curtain twitchers in the vicinity. Negotiating our way through a locked gate we did one last rudimentary look around at the overlooking windows, checked the rope, and Suboffender went about rigging the first pitch.
He descended down first so that he could get started on the second pitch, the other two of us quietly making our way down the 30m shaft in slow pursuit.
Once at the bottom, we had to find our way out of the ventilation conduits into the tunnel proper, eventually popping our heads out of a manhole in the south stairwell. I tiptoed towards the base of the stairs, slouched still with bated breath to listen out for any movements above. After about 30 seconds I turned back to see what the others thought, and had Suboffender waiting for me with a litter picker aimed directly at my nipple. Needless to say, he had no concerns.
From here it was a nice chill trip, we manoeuvred our way around the complex although you couldn't really see shit for the heaps of boxes stacked up. The company's bread and butter may have been storage, but tidiness sure wasn't one of their strong suits. I'm sure someone knew how everything was organised, but anything which wasn't on racking was just piled up unceremoniously crushing whatever lay beneath.
It was difficult to see what original fixtures may still exist behind all the boxes, you could see the tunnel construction in some of the passages, but they seem to have mostly removed a lot of the bunkbeds and replaced them with racking.
We made our way up the central staircase towards what would have been the connection to the tube station sitting above us, passing piles of old bunk beds removed from elsewhere. The station connection was bricked up, but the old shutter gate had been left in situ.
There's only so many boxes you can look at, so we ventured down into the bowels of the shelter to find the electrical and ventilation rooms, as this is where the best parts were. Pushing the door ajar to see the glowing purple presence of the mercury arc rectifier was incredible. We all took turns in standing next to it, slowly cooking our eyeballs whilst trying to unsuccessfully capture it's beauty in photos.
And with that we were done, we meandered back through the tunnels towards our ingress, one last glance behind us and then ascended back up and out onto the street above.
I'm sure I would have thanked him on the night, but had it not been for the company and friendship of Suboffender I'd likely never have gotten around to seeing the place in that state. I was still pretty new to SRT and he taught me heaps over the years. Those who knew him know exactly how much of a liability he could be on explores 😂 but he was an absolute lovable bastard.
Cheers Joel, miss you mate.
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