What secrets lurk inside the city's enormous underbelly? From April until August 2020, you've got the chance to find out, with the return of Hidden London. This new season of tours and events from London Transport Museum lifts the lid on disused stations, concealed tunnels, and other 'forgotten' parts of the tube network, as well as historically significant locations hiding in plain sight.
Highlights include the return of the Down Street Station tour, during which ticket-holders get to explore the narrow network of tunnels where Winston Churchill took shelter during the Blitz. This time around, you've got the chance to really make a day of it, with packages including afternoon tea at exceedingly swanky Athenaeum.
The upcoming tour season boasts a couple of new additions, too. Go behind the scenes at Moorgate — one of London's oldest tube stations — and marvel at the maze of disused tunnels and track created by over a century of station redevelopment.
Alternatively, if you prefer to stay above ground, there's a new walking tour to try out. Secrets of Central London reveals what is hiding in the heart of the capital as you trace 200 years of history, encountering abandoned transport infrastructure and great feats of engineering along the way.
Last year, we speculated that 2019 could be your last chance to take the Euston tour, thanks to HS2 work in the area. As anyone who has been keeping up with news on the highly contentious proposed railway network can probably guess, this isn't the case — tube aficionados get another chance at subterranean exploration here this year, too.
The full programme of events is as follows:
- Charing Cross – Access all areas
- Charing Cross – Tour & complimentary Skyfall film screening
- Charing Cross – Tour & afternoon tea
- Clapham South – Subterranean shelter
- Clapham South – Subterranean shelter tour & film clip
- Down Street – Churchill’s secret station
- Down Street – Tour & afternoon tea
- Down Street – Tour & lunch (two lunch options available)
- Euston – The lost tunnels
- Highgate – Wilderness walkabout
- Moorgate – Metropolitan Maze
- Piccadilly Circus – The heart of London
- Piccadilly Circus – Tour & lunch that rocks
- Walking Tour: Secrets of Central London
- Walking Tour: CW Clark’s Gateways to Metroland
- Walking Tour: Holden Goes West
Tickets for all tours go on public sale at 10am on Friday 6 March 2020.
