Visited with non-member
I'd been keen for a look round this for a while, so with a visit to London and a spare morning it seemed the perfect oppurtunity.
All eight Deep Level shelters built during 1941-1942 under existing London Underground stations remained under the ownership of the British Government for many years after the cessation of hostilities. The initial plan of incorporating them into an express rail route through the centre of London was initially shelved and then abandoned due to the lack of money after the War. Then, in the late 1990s, London Underground was given the opportunity to take control of the shelters with a view to leasing them out.
Since then, the deep level shelters (such as the one visited in Belsize Park in 2004) have been progressively leased to companies interested in using them to store items such as documents, film, videotapes and other similar archive material. All except Clapham North, which has remained completely empty since its contents were cleared after the War.
Until now. In 2006, Transport for London advertised the lease for Clapham North deep level shelter using a local estate agent and the requests came in. Many interesting and unusual requests for use were suggested but had to be rejected for health and safety reasons - the most common being people wanting to construct a night club in the 1,400ft tunnels! Some suggested creating living accommodation there - though precisely who would like to live in an unlit tunnel over 100ft beneath London is unclear to me. It was even rumoured that a large entertainment company had seriously looked into the possibility of converting one of these locations into a theme park ride based on World War 2 air raids! Realistically though, the only practical use for this prime central London real estate space would be for storage.
History taken from here- London Underground History::Clapham North Deep Level Shelter
Cheers
I'd been keen for a look round this for a while, so with a visit to London and a spare morning it seemed the perfect oppurtunity.
All eight Deep Level shelters built during 1941-1942 under existing London Underground stations remained under the ownership of the British Government for many years after the cessation of hostilities. The initial plan of incorporating them into an express rail route through the centre of London was initially shelved and then abandoned due to the lack of money after the War. Then, in the late 1990s, London Underground was given the opportunity to take control of the shelters with a view to leasing them out.
Since then, the deep level shelters (such as the one visited in Belsize Park in 2004) have been progressively leased to companies interested in using them to store items such as documents, film, videotapes and other similar archive material. All except Clapham North, which has remained completely empty since its contents were cleared after the War.
Until now. In 2006, Transport for London advertised the lease for Clapham North deep level shelter using a local estate agent and the requests came in. Many interesting and unusual requests for use were suggested but had to be rejected for health and safety reasons - the most common being people wanting to construct a night club in the 1,400ft tunnels! Some suggested creating living accommodation there - though precisely who would like to live in an unlit tunnel over 100ft beneath London is unclear to me. It was even rumoured that a large entertainment company had seriously looked into the possibility of converting one of these locations into a theme park ride based on World War 2 air raids! Realistically though, the only practical use for this prime central London real estate space would be for storage.
History taken from here- London Underground History::Clapham North Deep Level Shelter
Cheers
